


Between Heartbeats

by hazelwho



Series: Flashpoint Hospital AU [1]
Category: Flashpoint
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Canada, Developing Relationship, F/M, M/M, Medicine, Multi, Polyamory, Threesome - F/M/M, Toronto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-04
Updated: 2012-10-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:49:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelwho/pseuds/hazelwho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a Flashpoint hospital AU centering around Greg, who's an ER doctor. This is the story of his life, his job, and his evolving relationships with Ed (his best friend and a brilliant neurosurgeon) and Sophie (the new hospital caterer).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Element of Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter and fic titles are borrowed from _Flashpoint_ episodes, but have nothing to do with the corresponding original episodes. Sophie is most certainly not married to anyone in this fic, and there is no partner betrayal. (Although there is some angst here and there.) There are several OCs, some of whom I kill. Be forewarned, I did my best to make the setting realistic - there are discussions of medical procedures and some descriptions of the injuries of trauma victims. **If you have medical/hospital/death triggers, please consider this before reading!**
> 
> This fic has been rattling around in my head for a year now, trying to get out. Without a doubt, it would not ever have been written without the staunch support and endless pom-pom shaking of Lucifuge5. She's been encouraging this plot bunny since the very beginning, and she has read I-can't-even-count how many drafts of this fic in the past few weeks. She's a rock star and I wouldn't be here without her. Another huge thanks to mizface, my co-mod/brain-twin, who listened to me complain about this fic for months and always offered a sympathetic ear and helpful suggestions, despite having never watched the show. Thanks also to Baronjanus, who was a good sounding board at crucial points; teruel-a-witch, who always let me vent; Luzula, who made me think thinky thoughts about threesome relationship dynamics; Ande and Aka and Oms and everyone who sprinted with me; and all the other big bangers who cheered me on these past few months.
> 
> Also check out the awesome fanmix [Anatomy](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/ds_c6d_big_bang_2012/works/532133) that the amazing [theleaveswant](http://archiveofourown.org/users/theleaveswant/pseuds/theleaveswant) made for this fic. =)

"Fucking call night."

Greg turned from adding cream to his coffee and found Ed Lane behind him, holding his own Styrofoam cup. "Tell me about it," he said, shifting out of Ed’s way.

"You on tonight too?"

Greg nodded. "All weekend."

They made their way to the register and paid for their dinners, then found a quiet corner to sit and eat. Ed wolfed down half of his burger before asking, "So, how are things?"

Greg slurped his spaghetti and wiped his mouth. "Okay. My mom’s in the hospital with pneumonia again. She sounds good though."

"Sorry to hear that. I hope she’s better soon. You’re off for Christmas, right? Gonna go see her?"

"Nah, Donna’s got Christmas, but I’m off New Years. I’m going back west then. She doesn’t have animals anymore and the fields have gone to pot, but the farm needs a lot of work. Thought I’d make a list of what needs to be done next spring. What about you? You off Christmas?"

"Nah, I’ve got Thanksgiving. I get Christmas off next year. So, hey, I was thinking about –"

_BEEP BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEEP BEEP!_

Ed thumbed his pager and read aloud while Greg shoveled the rest of his dinner down.

"Trauma 937. ETA 8. 36 M MVA, unrestrained driver. Tachy 160s. Head injury. Open ankle. GCS 10."

They dumped their trays and headed down to the trauma bay. Greg rounded up the nursing staff on shift. "Listen up gang, we’ve got a 36 year old man who was the unrestrained driver in a motor vehicle collision headed our way in about 5 minutes. He’s tachycardic, but otherwise his vitals are stable. He’s got an unspecified head injury, but his Glasgow Coma Scale is 10. He's also got an open ankle fracture. Let’s prep bay 2. Someone get the radiology tech down here with the portable x-ray machine, and tell them that we’ll probably get a stat head CT in about half an hour. Winnie, would you please make sure whoever is on-call for Orthopedics got the page to come down here?"

"Sure, Boss."

Once he had given his orders, Greg stood back and watched the staff get everything ready in a flurry of efficient activity. Ed came up next to him and passed him a small Styrofoam cup of coffee.

"Wow. I will never get used to how crazy it is down here."

Greg shook his head. "Just a complicated, carefully choreographed dance that _looks_ kind of like chaos."

"You ever get burned out?"

"Nah. Tired, yes. Sometimes. Who doesn’t? But I’m always happy to get up to come to work again in the morning."

"Still, it’s a lot more demanding than neurosurgery. Sometimes we only do one case all day."

"Yeah, but you’re in _the same case_ for 10 hours. I get a chance to help dozens of different people every day over in the main ER. And here, in the trauma bay? This team is amazing – really dedicated and compassionate. We see people on the worst days of their lives, and get a chance to make a difference for them and for their families."

"Yeah, I can see how that would be -- " Ed was cut off as the ambulance rolled up, siren echoing against the building wall.

"Why don’t they ever remember to turn off that fucking siren?" groused Ed. "It’s not like they’re going to sneak up on us otherwise. We _know_ they’re coming. We are all standing here just waiting for them to arrive."

Greg grinned, but was saved from replying by the EMTs as they careened around the corner and sped into trauma bay 2. Nursing staff swarmed over the patient, checking IVs, attaching monitors, and cutting off clothing. Greg grabbed the board and helped transfer the patient from the EMT’s cot to his bed and listened as they gave report.

"Michael Barnes, hit a concrete barrier going about 100kph. No one else was in the car. He was unconscious when we arrived on the scene about 10 minutes later. Looks like he hit the windshield. He’s been in and out since then, appears to be inebriated. His GCS is 9. We started 2 IVs – an 18 in his left arm and a 14 in his right hand – and brought him in."

Greg leaned over the patient. "Michael! Hey, can you hear me, buddy? I’m Dr. Parker and you’re at Toronto Team Health Hospital. You were in an accident. Do you remember that?"

The man opened his eyes but didn’t respond. Greg checked him over system by system and called out results to Winnie, who was charting. Neuro and Ortho were both still examining the patient. Ortho finished first.

"Open right ankle fracture," Dr. Wordsworth pronounced. "Looks clean. Didn’t hit any arteries. I can splint this and it can wait until tomorrow if Neuro needs to operate tonight."

They looked at Ed. "Yeah, I’ve got a comminuted skull fracture here. We’ll probably need to get it cleaned up and relieve the pressure tonight. And we’ll need a CT to assess the extent of the damage and see how many bone pieces we’re dealing with."

Greg nodded. "His BP is stable, and his pulse is coming down. It’s likely just pain. I want 3 views of the right ankle on plain film, then we’ll splint it while they set up for the head CT. We’ll go ahead and add a C-spine to that. Call Radiology, please, Winnie; we’ll need a stat read."

The trauma team circled efficiently around the patient, leaving their work only for the few seconds it took to expose each x-ray. Shortly after the tech rolled the x-ray cart down the hall to develop the film, the splint was finished. Ed and Greg followed the gurney towards CT and met the on-call radiologist in the hallway.

"Hey guys," Dr. Scarlatti said.

"Hi Spike," Greg said, filling him in on the patient as they made their way to the small control room adjacent to the CT machine.

While the CT tech set up for the head CT, Spike read out the ankle films. "Yeah, open fracture, some soft tissue swelling, no indication of a big bleed or foreign bodies. If you stopped the bleeding, it’ll be fine until tomorrow."

Greg went out the back door to tell Wordy, leaving Ed and Spike watching the monitor as the CT chugged its way through the patient’s brain.

He found the Ortho on-call looking at the ankle films on the computer in the conference room. "Wordy, Radiology says you guys are in the clear until tomorrow. They’re still spinning his head, but I saw enough white that I’m pretty sure Neurosurgery is going to roll back on him tonight."

Wordy nodded, finished looking at the films, and started his note.

Greg picked up the phone and called Winnie.

"Hey Winnie, it’s Parker. Listen, we’re going to need an operating room for an emergent neurosurgery trauma. Can you wake the OR on-calls for me and set it up? Thanks!"

That done, Greg went looking for the chaplain, who had taken the patient’s wallet and phone and started trying to find his next of kin. The chaplain had located the patient’s mother and Greg spoke with her on the phone, trying to simultaneously calm her down and impress upon her the seriousness of the situation.

"Ma’am, your son was hurt very badly in the accident, but we are doing everything we can for him. He hit his head in the accident, and his skull is cracked. We will probably have to take him to surgery tonight to make sure there aren’t any bone fragments pushing on his brain and causing swelling, so you won’t be able to see him until morning anyway..." He finished getting her consent for the surgery and encouraged her to wait and have someone drive her down instead of getting behind the wheel in the state she was in.

Just as he hung up, he saw Ed and Spike headed down the hall toward him.

"Gentlemen, what’s the word?"

Spike answered first. "Depressed skull fracture, comminuted with about two dozen pieces."

Ed added, "We’ll need to take him back and get all the bone slivers out. Probably we’ll leave it open tonight and plate it when the swelling goes down in a few days. I should call for an OR."

"Already done," Greg said. "Winnie’s got you on the board and set up in 12. All the on-call people have been paged and should be back there already. Anything else you need from us?"

"Thank you, Greg. No, that should do it. I’m going back to talk to Anesthesia and scrub in. I’ll send for the patient as soon as the room is ready."

* * *

Greg saw two more cases before there was enough of a lull to make him think he could catch a couple hours of sleep before the bars let out and the usual Friday night trauma traffic rolled through the doors. He made his way to the call room, punched in the code, and let himself in. He knocked on the door of the Jack-and-Jill bathroom, and when no one answered, he let himself in to wash his face. Back in his own room, he booted up the computer and checked his board one last time. All was well, so he kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the bed. He woke an hour later to the sound of someone running water in the shared bath, and glanced over at his board. Still no trauma calls, so he closed his eyes again.

What felt like seconds later, his pager started shrieking. Greg sat up, shoving his feet into his shoes as he read the message. "Trauma 940. 25 M, found down, AMS, GCS 6. ETA 15."

He stepped in to the hallway just as Ed Lane opened the door of the next call room over. "How did it go with the skull fracture?"

Ed looked over at Greg as they made their way downstairs. "As well as could be expected. No intraoperative complications, and his CT looks okay. There is some edema, so we left it open for now. I talked to his mother too. She’s here. We got her a place to sleep and I’ll go see her again in the morning when we know how he’s responding."

They pushed through the doors of the trauma bay and Greg addressed the gathered staff.

"Okay. We’ve got a 25 year old man on the way. He was found down, so we have no idea what happened. He’s got altered mental status and isn’t very responsive, so we’re looking for head injuries in addition to whatever else we might see."

The EMTs rolled in 10 minutes later. Thirty minutes after that, the work-up was complete.

"Sorry they dragged out of bed, Eddie. He doesn’t have a head injury; he just passed out drunk. Scans are completely clear and his tox screen shows a BAL of 0.35."

"No problem." Ed was much more gracious than Greg would have thought a neurosurgeon would be after being consulted at 3:30 in the morning for altered mental status on an intoxicated patient.

Greg turned to the nurse. "Let's hang a banana bag - I’ll put in orders for the fluids, thiamine, folic acid, and magnesium. I'll also write scheduled benzos for seizure prophylaxis and to watch him for any sign of alcohol withdrawal."

Greg glanced at his watch after finishing his paperwork, surprised to see it was almost morning. Maybe he could catch a bit more sleep before the end of his shift.

Once back in his callroom, he knocked softly on the bathroom door and then let himself in, trying not to wake Ed next door. He made his way back to bed, toeing off his shoes and putting his pager on the nightstand. Moments after he had pulled the scratchy blanket up around his shoulders, he heard scuffling in the bathroom and then a soft knock at his side of the door. He opened the door and let Ed in without question.

Ed flopped into the one chair in the room. "I can’t sleep. You?"

"Nah," Greg replied, even though he was exhausted. He sat on the bed with his back to the wall.

"I hate these call nights. Screws up my whole schedule."

"There’s always the Nintendo in the resident lounge."

Ed smiled. "Yeah, us surgeon-types gotta keep up our hand skills."

Greg watched as Ed stretched, pushing his back into the chair trying to pop his spine. Then Ed’s long arms came down behind his head and he pinched at his own neck.

"Man, I hate those long surgeries wearing the lead vests. Especially operating with Vinita. She’s so much shorter than me that I have to lean way over to reach the table when it’s set up for her. And…"

Ed continued to complain and Greg watched as he rolled his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck. It was another one of the moments that passed between them with some regularity where they seem poised on the edge of something else. The moments always slipped by and they slid back into their usual, comfortable friendship.

It was nothing new for Greg, watching these opportunities slide past. It was nearly impossible for anyone to keep Ed’s interest for more than a few weeks, and he had mostly stopped looking after getting a few bad reactions to his 'open relationships only' policy back in medical school. Greg’s own track record wasn’t any better. In fact, Greg had probably gone on even fewer dates than Ed in the last couple of years. Thinking about it, Greg suddenly felt tired. Not just sleep-deprived, but tired of all of it. Tired of this game he and Ed played with each other.

"Come here," he said softly, cutting into Ed’s rant. Ed looked over at him with a question on his face. "I’ll rub that for you."

Ed looked confused and unsure, and Greg felt his ears go red. Maybe it wasn’t an invitation after all when Ed did this. Maybe he had misread the situation. But Ed rose from the chair, crossed the room in two steps, and sat on the bed with his back to Greg. Greg moved to sit behind Ed and tried to steady his breathing. He reached up and put his hands on Ed’s shoulders, starting at the outside edges. Ed let out a deep breath and some of his tension eased. Greg worked methodically from outside in, and then attacked Ed’s neck, the spot his friend always held most of his tension. Ed’s head hung low and his mouth opened, letting Greg hear his roughened breathing.

"Mmmm," Ed said, getting more relaxed by the minute. Greg was anything but relaxed, and those groans weren’t helping any. Greg finished up, rubbing small fast circles all over with both thumbs. Ed husked out, "You always take such good care of me." Then he turned to look at Greg, staring into his eyes a moment before continuing. "Thank you."

Greg just stared back, trying to come up with something to say. Before he could think of anything though, Ed had flattened him down onto the bed, coming down beside him. Ed was untying the drawstrings on his scrubs and mumbling, "Let me take care of you now."

Ed had found his way into Greg’s scrubs and his warm hands were shaping over the beginnings of Greg’s erection. Greg opened his eyes. Ed was stretched out beside him, with his head propped up on his left arm watching the place where his right arm disappeared into blue pants with TTHH stamped on the thigh in black ink. Ed eased his hand up and out, then back under both of Greg’s layers. Greg couldn’t help but puff out short little breaths as skin hit skin. Ed looked up at his eyes then, grinning that sexy confident smirk down at Greg. Greg felt his hips lift up, pushing into Ed’s hand.

"Yeah," Ed whispered. "Just like that." Greg’s eyes closed and his fingers twisted into the sheets and his body stretched toward what it wanted. He was so close already. He opened his eyes and Ed was leaning over him, staring at his mouth. Greg licked his lips. Ed flicked his gaze up to Greg’s eyes, and then he leaned his head down to press their lips together. It was a surprisingly chaste kiss from someone who had already his hand in Greg’s pants. Greg opened his mouth a little, and their teeth clicked when Ed opened his. Ed swiped his tongue into Greg’s mouth. Greg moaned and came. Ed was panting into his still-open mouth and making hungry little noises as he pushed his erection against Greg’s right hip.

Greg threw and arm around Ed’s hips and, realizing how close his friend was to the edge of the twin-sized bed, scooted them both over toward the wall until Ed could safely lie flat on his back. Looking down at Ed made something in his chest go tight. Instead of thinking about it, Greg leaned down and kissed him again. When Ed broke away to catch his breath, Greg trailed along his jaw and then made his way down Ed’s throat, dipping into the v-neck of his top. Ed’s hips were pushing up on their own, searching for any kind of contact, and Greg didn’t have it in him to make him wait any longer.

Greg fiddled with the drawstring on his pants and then pushed his hand up under Ed’s top and scratched his belly lightly before sliding his hand back down to wrap around his cock. Ed moaned and Greg hushed him, which would might been more effective if Greg hadn’t also been pulling Ed’s pants and shorts down to his knees. Ed’s cock sprung free, hard and leaking. Greg leaned over and took the head into his mouth. Ed groaned again and then closed his mouth over his own forearm, muffling the noises he couldn’t seem to stop making. Ed’s thighs flexed, still trapped in his pants, and Greg could tell Ed was trying not to thrust up into his mouth. Greg gave him a long lick as a reward and then pushed his mouth down, taking as much of Ed as he could manage. He felt Ed’s balls draw up and heard a soft warning from above. Greg pulled off and brought his hand back to finish Ed off.

The two of them spent the next five minutes lying on their backs and panting. Greg peeked over at Ed a couple of times, and caught Ed sneaking glances at him, but no one spoke. Slowly, the capacity for higher thought returned and Greg assessed the situation. _Right. So he was at work, with come drying uncomfortably in his pants, sharing a twin bed with his best friend, who he had just sucked off. This could be very, very bad._ He looked over at Ed again, and found Ed staring straight back at him. Ed was smiling as he leaned in and planted a short, smacking kiss on Greg’s lips. Ed laughed at whatever startled expression was on Greg’s face and sat up.

"Come on, we need showers and I’ve got clean scrubs in my room."


	2. Asking for Flowers

Emily Parker had chronic lung disease, despite having never smoked in her life, from spending 35 years with Greg’s dad, a chain-smoker who continued to hurt her even after he died from alcoholic cirrhosis. Because of her lung issues, Greg always made sure she got her pneumonia and flu shots on time, but Emily still came down with a bad bout of pneumonia every couple years. She usually spent a few days in the hospital until the IV antibiotics and breathing treatments subdued the infection. But this time, three days turned into five, and she sounded weaker each night when Greg called to talk to her. On the sixth day, the phone was answered by the nursing station because Emily was on the ventilator. Greg hung up and called Air Canada. After that, he called the other ER attendings and started begging for schedule swaps and offering to pick up extra weekends to get his shifts for the rest of the week covered. Five hours later, he was on a plane back west.

Greg found his mother’s room, in the ICU now. He brushed her cheek and called her name, but she didn’t respond. Greg reminded himself that she was probably sedated since she was on the ventilator, but he couldn’t help thinking she looked much more fragile that he’d ever seen her before. He ignored the sight of the tubes down her throat and in her arms and snaking out from under the blankets and just held her delicate hand for a few minutes. Eventually, the physician in him took over and he stood and walked around the bed to check out the vent settings, looking to see what medication was hanging and what drips were running, and he started to form his own assessment of her condition. Between the fairly aggressive ventilator settings and the big-gun broad-spectrum antibiotics they were giving her, he gathered that the doctor would have sanguine news for him.

Greg wandered out to the unfamiliar nurse’s station and poured himself an expectedly bad cup of coffee from the pot. He thought about asking the nurses when the ICU attending normally rounded, and then he realized it didn’t matter. Today he wasn’t a doctor waiting on a colleague. He was the family of a patient who had nothing better to do than hold an unconscious person’s hand and wait in a crappy chair for however many hours it took until a doctor came to see them. 

The attending was a Doctor Hawkins, a kindly older man who insisted on calling him Dr. Parker and treating him like a colleague. He explained all of his treatment decisions and made sure Greg was on the same page as he was. Dr. Hawkins also told the nurses not to chase Greg out when they closed the ICU to visitors for shift change. 

It turned out to be just three days that he spent in that room. It felt like much longer, but nothing could have pried Greg away from that chair. He was pretty sure his mother realized he was there; she had squeezed his hand a few times. But every day when Pulmonology came through, they pushed her vent settings up, and the three bags of Zosyn and two of Vancomycin that ran into her veins every day weren’t enough to fight whatever infection was raging in her body.

After it was over, Greg let himself into her house and sat at the kitchen table staring at the paisley drapes. He got up, made a pot of coffee, and found her address book. Sat at the table again with the phone, the address book, and a cup of cooling coffee in front of him and stared at the drapes some more. He couldn’t even think who to call. His mom had a cousin in Vancouver, but last he had heard she was being put in a home for Alzheimer’s patients. Something too small and bitter and brittle to be called a laugh escaped Greg’s throat. For years, the two of them had only had each other, and now there was _nobody_. Finally, he called Lydia, who ran the gardening club with his mother, and broke the news to her. She put some kind of phone tree into action and Greg didn’t have to call anyone else. He turned off the ringer, turned on the answering machine and spun the volume on it down to zero. Then he kicked off his shoes, stretched out on the couch, pulled the orange and brown knit afghan down over himself, and slept a full night for the first time in 4 days.

The next two days were a blur. Greg was surprised by how _little_ there was to do. When his dad had died, he and his mom had spent almost a week making decisions and arrangements. There was none of that this time. She was to be buried in the same plot as his dad. In fact, her name and birth date had already been carved into the headstone next to his father’s name and dates. Greg already knew how to call the right department at the local paper and put an obituary notice in. He didn’t speak at the funeral – there was no one he knew there to listen to his memories. He let the preacher pick the hymns and he let the garden club ladies talk about her spirit and her service to the community and her lemon shortbread. He thanked them and cried with them and let them pat his arm, but he felt like it was happening to someone else. The next thing he knew, he had shut the house up tight and caught his flight back to Toronto.

Greg drove straight from the airport to the hospital. He snagged a pair of scrubs from the OR and showered in the call room. He had ten minutes to sit quietly in the call room and collect himself before the start of the first of many night shifts he had agreed to take in exchange for having the last week off.

As soon as he walked into the bullpen of the ER, Donna Sabine came over and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey Donna." His voice was scratchy and he wondered idly when he had last used it.

"Greg, I’m so sorry."

He swallowed a couple of times and managed to nod his thanks. Donna pulled back and looked at him for a minute.

"You look like shit. Did you just get back?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I did my best to clear the board for you," she said as they walked back toward the ER board, "but you’ve got labs pending on the chest pain in bed 5, and whoever’s in bed 9 just got here – I didn’t see them."

Greg nodded and reached for the charts. Next to the chart rack was a large vase filled with white calla lilies. Greg raised an eyebrow at Donna. She smiled softly.

"The unit clerks, Winnie and Kira. Winnie remembered that you always sent her a bouquet on her birthday because she loved flowers."

Greg pinched the bridge of his nose, hard, and swiped at his eyes. Donna had the good grace to look away. Then she punched him in the arm, acting just like the little sister he had always wanted. "Hang in there, Greg. I’ll be back in 12."

He laughed and waved as she left. He sat for another moment, getting used to being back. Then he grabbed the two charts out of the rack and headed back toward the unit clerk’s station.

Shift change was in full swing, so Greg managed to catch both unit clerks as they thumbed through paper and did the shift check-out. Winnie was giving Kira the run-down of what had happened during day shift and the status of all the patients currently in the ER. They looked up when Greg came over to them. He gave them the best smile he could muster and nodded his head approvingly.

"She would have loved the flowers. Thank you both so much."

"Glad you liked them, Boss," Kira said.

Winnie smiled. "I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee on my way out. You both look like you could use it."

Kira elbowed her. Greg smiled. "All right, then. What’s next?"

* * *

Greg got the chest pain ruled out for acute MI. He waded through the evening’s falls, abdominal pain, and dizziness. Around 1am it slowed a bit and Greg told Kira he was going to try to take a nap. He headed up to the call room, reading the white boards as he walked past the other doors. Dr. Rousseau was on for Radiology and Dr. Lane was on for Neuro. Greg scribbled his name on the board outside his usual room. He was technically in the main ER tonight and not on trauma call, but whoever was on trauma could find another place to crash. Greg couldn’t stand to share space with anyone but Ed right now. He didn’t even bother to turn on the lights as he kicked off his shoes, set his pager and phone on the desk, and crawled into the bed.

No, Greg admitted to himself in the dark, it was more than that. He _wanted_ to share space with Ed right now. He needed the connection with the man who had just been promoted to Most Important Person in His Life. Greg wished he was brave enough to knock on the other man’s door, to seek his solace there, but he would settle for being 10 feet and two walls away. It was as close to Ed as he could reasonably expect to get. Greg had no idea what last week had been to Ed, and hadn’t had any time to think about what it meant to him. 

Greg wrapped the memory of their night together around himself and tried not to think about anything else. He was so exhausted he couldn’t sleep. His legs itched to move and his brain kept catching, remembering things he had to do. And after 4 nights in a hospital chair and 2 on his mother’s sofa, the call room bed with its scratchy blankets felt unfamiliar and awkward. He kicked around, rolling in the covers, shaking out his legs and adjusting his pillow. He settled on his back, staring up at the water stained acoustic tiling in the near-dark of the room. He tried to calm his thoughts, but before he managed to shut out the world, he heard Ed moving around next door.

Soon, Greg heard a soft knock on the bathroom door that connected their two rooms. He didn’t call out, but he turned his head toward the door and watched as Ed let himself in.

"Hey," he said softly. "You want company?"

Greg didn’t speak, for fear that the sheer need he was feeling would come through in his voice, but he shifted over toward the wall to make room for Ed. Ed lifted the edge of the blankets, angled his long limbs into the bed. He gently pushed Greg’s shoulder, rolling him toward the wall, and then tucked himself up behind him. Ed wrapped an arm around his shoulder and squeezed softly. It occurred to Greg that Ed was now the only person on Earth who was ever going to hold him. He had other friends, but Ed was the only hugger in the group. A tear rolled out of his eye and soaked into the pillow.

"How was it?" Ed breathed, but Greg couldn’t answer him. Ed rubbed his hand up and down Greg’s upper arm and let the silence stand.

Eventually, Greg whispered, "It was awful. It was…easy. It shouldn’t be easy. But she already took care of everything after…when my dad…" Greg swallowed thickly. "Her name was even on the stone already. It was like the grave was _waiting_ for her."

Ed wrapped his arms around him and squeezed, anchoring him, lending him strength. Greg took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Ed continued his silent support, and soon Greg was relaxed enough to fall asleep.

Greg’s pager woke them both up a few hours later. Ed sighed and released him, rolling out of the bed and tossing the pager back to Greg. The ER was slammed the rest of the night. Finally, at 7:45 the next morning, Greg let himself into his apartment and collapsed in his own bed.

Ed was on again the next night. This time he opened the door between their rooms as soon as he heard Greg come in. Greg looked up from untying his shoelaces to see Ed leaning in the door frame, arms crossed, eyes gleaming, with this little smirk on his lips. They stared at each other for a long moment and then Greg was on the bed and Ed was on Greg.

Ed was kissing him. Long, slow, drugging kisses, and _Oh_ , thought Greg, _we’re doing this again?_ Ed nipped at his jaw and strong hands slid under Greg’s shirt to stroke at his back. Greg lost himself in the warm, lazy feeling of it all. They drifted along each other’s bodies, avoiding the most sensitive areas at first by an unspoken mutual agreement to draw out their pleasure as long as possible. They ended up naked under the covers, face to face, mere inches apart, each stroking the other until they came seconds apart. They lay still for a long while afterwards, breathing in each other’s air and waiting for their hearts slow.

* * *

Two days later, running solely on caffeine after working 72 hours in 5 days, he ran across Ed in a stairwell.

Ed pushed him into the corner of the landing, took a quick look around and then spun back and looked at Greg with dark, serious eyes.

"You doing all right, Greg?"

"Yeah." Greg cleared his throat and tried again. "Yeah, Eddie, I’m fine."

"Okay. You’ll let me know if I can do anything?"

Greg looked at Ed as if to say, _What could you possibly do?_

"Yeah. Dumb question. But you let me know if you think of something."

Greg nodded.

"You on this week?"

"Friday, Saturday, and Sunday."

Ed winced. "Ouch. I’ll be here Friday and Sunday."

"You’ve been on almost as many nights as I have! You must have really pissed off whoever makes the schedule."

"Something like that. See you around?"

"You know where I’ll be."

Ed grinned at that, and Greg found himself smiling in response. He didn’t know what exactly they were doing, but he did know that he would be leaving the door to his room unlocked this weekend. It was a good choice. Ed’s mouth was exquisite, and he dedicated the next few weeks to putting it on every single inch of Greg’s body.


	3. The Good Citizen

It was that time of year again, and Greg looked over the new crop of students. As usual, both of them claimed to want to do Emergency Medicine when Greg asked. He rolled his eyes. Honestly, what made them think that sucking up to their preceptors by feigning interest in a career they couldn’t care less about was a good idea? 

"You know, just about every single student that’s ever come through here tells me they want to do what I do when they grow up. And you know what? I don’t believe that. I’m not stupid, and it won’t hurt my feelings any if you all want to be surgeons or pediatricians or anything else you can think of. But I can’t stand being lied to. So just drop it and talk to me. I promise not to fail you for daring to have another interest."

Jake Smith looked relieved and almost immediately said he wanted to be a dermatologist. Jules Callaghan still insisted she was interested in Emergency Medicine. Greg sent the Smith kid to the main ER side to help look at all the rashes people showed up with and he had Jules follow him back over to the trauma bay.

"So, Jules. What makes you think you want to do Emergency?"

Jules shuffled a bit, then answered. "I…like helping people. All medicine is about helping people, I guess. But it’s pretty rare to actually get to fix something for someone… Or, well. Maybe if you asked a surgeon, they’d say they fixed what was broken. Even the derm guys would say people left their offices better than they came in, I guess. But, for me, all I want to do is to be able to go home at the end of the day and know that I made a real difference in someone’s life. ...When I was 10 my grandma had a heart attack and I was the only one there. I called 911 and, since I was so young, they took me in the ambulance with her to the hospital. The paramedics kept me calm and the nurse in the ER held my hand until my mom got there, and the ER doc, he came to talk to me. He told me I’d done well, calling an ambulance, and that they would take good care of my grandma and that I’d be able to see her again soon. I just…it’s… I want to do that for someone else. Make them feel okay when nothing in the world is okay."

Jules had started slowly, but by the end, the words were rushing out of her and she was looking up at Greg with something close to fear in her eyes, like she was waiting for him to laugh at her, to tell her that would never happen. Greg smiled at her.

"We see people on the worst day of their lives. Anything we can do to help them, or their family, get through that is a big win at the end of the day. You’re not going to save everyone. This is a trauma bay. The people who come in here are hurt very badly, and some of them will die. But medicine isn’t just about healing bodies. You get that, Callaghan, and that’s a rare quality. I think you’ll be an excellent physician, whatever field you go in to. We’ll try to get you some trauma experience this month and you can see if this still feels right to you."

Jules beamed back at him.

Greg toured her around the trauma bay, showing her where all of the important things were - blankets, ortho glass, ultrasound, towels, radiology, and the coffee machine. Greg had just poured them each a cup of black sludge when his pager went off.

"TRAUMA 1570. ETA 5. 45 F, FALL. 220/148, 54. GCS 12"

Greg led them back to the bullpen and addressed the staff. "We’ve got a 45 year old woman on the way in about 5 minutes. She fell and her BP is through the roof. Kira, call CT and tell them we may need a stat brain scan. There was no mention of broken bones, but get the portable x-ray guys down here anyway, okay?"

While Greg talked, activity swirled around him as his people gathered supplies in a quick but orderly fashion. He was glad to see Jules rolling the ultrasound toward bay 5 and grabbing several blankets out of the warmer on the way.

A few minutes later, the bay was fully prepped and everyone stood around waiting. Greg smiled.

"Jules, the first rule of trauma pages is that the ETA is _never_ right. They say 15 minutes, you have 5. They say 5 minutes and show up in 30. All we can do is be as ready as possible whenever they get here." Greg turned to the rest of the room. "Everyone, this is Jules Callaghan. It’s her first day on this rotation. She wants to be one of us, so let’s make her feel welcome. Jules, this is —" Greg broke off as the main doors slid open and two EMTs pushed a gurney toward them. "—Everyone. Formal introductions to follow."

A few minutes later, Greg realized they may well have an emergency case for neurosurgery. He quickly finished the primary survey, making sure the patient didn’t have any serious external wounds or signs of internal bleeding. He stripped off his gloves and said, "We need a brain CT. Now. Add on a C-spine too, would you?"

"You got it, Boss," Kira said, already starting to wheel the patient away.

Greg nodded to Jules to follow him through the back entrance of the CT room, where he immediately picked up the phone and dialed the neurosurgery batphone.

"Lane," said a rough voice.

"Eddie. Parker here. We have a woman who looks like she needs an emergency decompressive craniotomy."

"I’m on my way now. What’s the story?"

"46 year old woman named Ella Compton who saw a drunk lose control and hit a guard rail on a bridge. She stopped to see if he needed help, slipped down the embankment and hit her head."

"Jesus."

"Yeah. At the scene, pressure was 220/148, pulse 54, respirations 10."

"Any anisocoria?"

"On my exam, pupils are equal and reactive and GCS was 10, but I have a feeling she’s going to go downhill fast. We’ve got her in the CT now –" Greg glanced over at the initial set of scouting images popping up on the computer in real time – "and on the scouts I see a right parietal epidural hematoma and what looks the beginnings of a midline shift."

"Okay, I’m almost there."

Greg hung up and shot Jules an apologetic look. "I’m sorry, Jules. As soon as it calms down a little, I’ll explain all of this. For now, just hold on." Greg pulled two chairs up for them behind where the CT tech was working, watching in real time as the patient went through the machine again for the fine-cut sections of the scan. Ed arrived out of breath a minute later and immediately claimed the other computer, scanning back and forth through the images as they appeared. Three minutes after that, the head CT was done and the scanner moved on to her neck.

"Yeah, you’re right. Acute epidural on the right and a 2mm midline shift. Good pickup, Greg."

Greg smiled ruefully at Ed. "I was hoping I was wrong."

"Next best thing is catching it early. When her C-spine is done, you’ll want to reassess her for intubation. I’ll call up and get an OR and we’ll do a decompressive craniotomy as soon as you can have her upstairs."

"Sounds good, Eddie. I want you to meet Jules Callaghan. Jules, this is our neurosrugeon, Dr. Lane."

"Nice to meet you, Jules. Anytime you want to come play with brains, you're welcome to scrub in with us."

"Thanks, I—"

The trauma pager howled on Greg’s hip.

"TRAUMA 1571. ETA 5. 32M UNRESTREAINED DRIVER MVC. 92/70, 120. GCS 12."

"Looks like they got the driver our Samaritan stopped to help. I’ve got to go. Thanks guys." With a nod to Ed and the CT tech, Greg led Jules out of CT control room and jogged back to the Trauma desk.

"Okay, everyone. We’ve got an unrestrained driver coming in, a 32 year old man. He’s shocky, but stable in the field. Kira, where’s he going?"

"Bay 2, Boss."

"Okay, let’s set up trauma bay 2. Get the ultrasound in there, alert x-ray, get a couple bags of fluid ready, and make sure there are chest tube trays in the room."

The paramedics barreled through the sliding door with more urgency than usual. The siren was still wailing on their rig; no one had stopped to shut it off.

"James Holder, 32. Unrestrained driver, hit the metal railing on a bridge. Fire department just got him cut out of the car. Vitals are tanking, last read was 60/40, 180. He was conscious at the scene, but he’s unresponsive now."

The crew got him transferred to the ER cot and Greg took his place at the head of the bed. He put his stethoscope in his ears and held it in front of the man’s mouth and nose.

"Airway intact," he called out, "tachypneic with labored respirations."

Greg listened to the lung fields next. He didn’t hear breath sounds on the right.

"Quiet for a second, please," called Greg and the all the staff who were cutting off the patients clothes and trying to start IVs stilled while he listened carefully and then tapped on the patient’s chest. "No breath sounds on the right, lung fields are hyperresonant to percussion."

A glance at the man’s throat showed a deviated trachea and visible jugular venous distention.

"Tension pneumo," said Greg to Kira, who was recording for the trauma, and then he addressed the nurse closest to the IV cart. "I need the biggest needle you’ve got. A 10 or an 8, if you have it. And someone open and prep a chest tube set."

The nurse handed him a 10 gauge needle. He opened the package and uncapped the needle with his right hand while finding the patient’s third and fourth ribs with his left. Having identified his landmarks, he stabbed the needle into the patient’s chest just above his nipple. There was an audible hiss of air. Greg jammed his stethoscope back in his ears and listened again. "Bilateral breath sounds," he said with relief.

"Pressure now 101/77, pulse is 100," called Kira, as the buzz of activity picked up again. They resumed their initial survey of the patient, finding two broken ribs on the right side, but no evidence of intraabdominal bleed or other injuries.

"Boss, chest tube tray ready behind you."

"Thanks," Greg said. Then, louder, "Mister Holder? Can you hear me? You were in a car accident. You’re in Toronto Team Health Hospital."

The patient moaned, but didn’t open his eyes. "Give him 2 of morphine and watch his vitals. It’s going to hurt when I put this tube in," he said to the nurse. "Mister Holder! When you hit that steering wheel, you broke some ribs, and your lung collapsed. I have to put a tube in your chest to make sure you keep breathing okay. I’m going to have someone hold your arm while I do this. I’m not going to lie to you, sir, it’s going to hurt. But I’ve given you some pain medication already, and we’ll make sure you get some more as soon as your breathing is stable. Okay?"

The patient fluttered his eyes, but gave no other response. Greg picked up his right hand and squeezed it, then stretched Holder’s right arm up over his head.

"Jules. Stand on the other side from me and hold his arm."

Jules snuck behind and between people, making her way up to the head of the bed. She took the patient’s hand, lacing her fingers into his and bracing her arm on top of his, ready to hold him down if needed, and nodded at Greg.

Greg turned and saw the Mayo stand set up behind him. He opened the Chloro-prep swab and started prepping the patient’s chest.

"Jules, have you seen a chest tube placed before?" he asked.

"No, sir."

"Unlike the emergency thorocotomy, which I made in high on the chest in the mid-clavicular line, the chest tube goes in low on the lateral side."

Greg draped his field, put on his mask, and then gowned and gloved himself. 

"You’re aiming for the 4th intercostal space, just anterior to the mid-axillary line."

He watched the patient’s face as he numbed the area with local, but Mr. Holder didn’t move. Greg found his anatomical markers and made his incision. He glanced up to make sure the patient was okay and that Jules wasn’t going to pass out on him. So far, so good. Hemostats went in next, stretching the hole and spreading the ribs. The patient flinched and groaned at that, but the student held him steady. Greg swept his finger in next, freeing the lung pleura from the surrounding tissue. Finally, he picked up the chest tube with the hemostats and guided it into place. After checking the placement of the tube and the making sure the water seal suction was working in the container portion of the chest tube, he began stitching it in place.

"Jules, I want you to read up on tension pneumothorax tonight and tomorrow tell me why I didn’t order a chest x-ray before putting the IV needle into his chest, but why I _am_ ordering imaging now."

Once everything was secure, they sent the patient to have a CT chest and abdomen and to get neck films to clear his C-spine. Greg returned to his desk and pulled up a chair for Jules.

"Busy first day you’ve had. Any questions so far?"

"No questions yet. I'm going to read about craniectomies and chest tubes tonight though, and I might have questions tomorrow."

"Fair enough. I’m going to put in admission orders for James Holder, and then we’ll go through all the CTs and films on your first two patients. Have you had radiology yet?"

"No, that’s next."

"No problem. After a month in the ER, you’ll be a pro at reading films."

The rest of the day was busy, but Jules kept up nicely. She had good rapport with her patients and was eager to learn. When it hit 6:30pm, Greg sent her home.

"Great job today, Jules. Why don’t you get out of here. We’ve seen everyone that’s on the board, and anyone who comes in now will have to wait and see the night shift."

Jules froze and looked guilty. It was the look of someone who wanted to leave but wasn’t sure they were supposed to. Greg remembered that feeling from being a student.

He laughed softly. "Not a trick, Jules. I’m just going to be finishing notes and discharges. You’re not going to learn a lot from watching me do paperwork. Get out of here."

She smiled at him. "Thanks, Dr. Parker."

As Greg was finishing up, Ed walked into the bullpen and dropped into the chair next to his. Greg signed his note and looked over at Ed.

"You got plans?" Ed asked

"No."

"Yeah you do," Ed grinned. "We’re going out."

"Going out?" Greg echoed.

"Yeah. I worked 100 hours this week and you’ve been working 8 to 10 shifts a week for a month now, and pulling double duty in the main ER and the trauma bay. For the first time, neither of us has to be anywhere tomorrow. So we’re going out. Maybe hit a sports bar, catch the Leafs game."

"So your argument is that, because I have time off from my stressful, demanding job for the first time in too long to count, instead of going home and staring at a blank wall until I fall asleep, I should spend this precious free time out at some loud bar, full of people, watching overgrown men beat each other up on television?"

Ed shot him a wolfish grin. "Yup, that's the plan. We go out, eat not-hospital food, hang out with people who don’t need anything from us, and we watch people beat on each other without feeling like we need to go fix it." He lowered his voice, "And then we go home and I do something that will make _sure_ you have a good night’s sleep. I’ll even let you stare at the wall if that’s what does it for you," Ed finished with a wink.

Greg took a steadying breath. "Leafs suck," he managed in mostly-normal voice.

"Do not. But I might. If you’re lucky."

Ed laughed at the shocked look that must be on his face. "What, you thought I just had a call-room kink or something? Does this look like fucking _Grey’s Anatomy_ to you?"

Donna showed up just then, tossing her coat over the back of the chair Ed was sitting in.

"Hey guys. What’s up?"

"Hey, Donna," Ed said smoothly. "We’re both off tomorrow. Gonna hit a sports bar tonight, get drunk, watch the Leafs play."

Donna looked at Greg, whose brain hadn't come back online yet. Once again, "Leafs suck," was all he could come up with.

"Oh God," Ed cried. "I forgot you were from out west. You root for the Oilers, don’t you?"

Greg ignored him and turned to Donna. "I’m not leaving you a bad board for once. Trauma bay is empty. The guy in 3 has pancreatitis. He’s going upstairs; the orders are already in. The kid in 5 fell off her skateboard and probably has a Colles fracture. I ordered three views of the wrist and we’re just waiting for Radiology to come take her back for films. Everyone else has walking papers already put in."

"Great, thanks Greg. Enjoy your day off, you deserve it. Are you finally done with the extra shifts you picked up to go back home?"

"Yeah, this was my last one," Greg stood, pulling on his jacket. Ed led the way out to the parking lot.

Ed stopped in front of his SUV. "Follow me back to my place? That way we can go to the bar in one car."

"Sure, Eddie."

It took less than 5 minutes to get to Ed’s – he had chosen the apartment complex for it's proximity to the hospital. Greg pulled in next to Ed and waited with the engine idling. Ed got out of his SUV, but instead of climbing in the passenger seat of Greg’s car, he leaned on the roof on the driver’s side and stared at Greg. Greg rolled the window down.

"Whatchya doing?" Ed drawled.

"I thought I was driving us to the bar to watch hockey?"

"We could do that," Ed agreed, casually looking over his shoulder. "Or…we could skip the bar, skip the game, and just go upstairs and fuck."

Greg turned the engine off and rolled the window up on Ed’s smug face.

* * *

Greg had been inside Ed’s apartment hundreds of times. He had helped Ed move in to this place, for God’s sake. So there was no good reason for his palms to get sweaty this time as he walked through the door. Thankfully, there wasn’t much of an in-between time. No ordering pizza or sipping scotch or watching TV and wondering about what was going to happen later. Ed just walked in the door, threw his keys in the bowl, and started backing Greg through the apartment, shedding clothes on the way. When they hit his bedroom, Ed pinned Greg to the wall with his whole body, kissing him like he was trying to crawl inside him.

Greg pulled and tugged at Ed hips, trying to get even closer to him. Ed nipped his way down Greg’s neck and bit at his chest. He groaned at Ed, and took a moment to appreciate finally being free to make as much noise as he liked. Greg pushed his hips against Ed’s, feeling a matching hardness there and making Ed growl. Ed spun them away from the wall and stepped back from Greg, and they shucked the last of their clothing.

"Bed," Ed said, disappearing briefly down the hall. Greg heard the cabinet doors in Ed’s bathroom bang in succession and then Ed returned with his travel shave kit. He upended it onto the bed, fishing around in the mess for a strip of condoms and a tube of lube. He handed those off to Greg and swept everything else onto the floor. Greg laughed at the sight of his friend losing his famous composure. He put the stuff on the nightstand and pulled Eddie into bed with him.

Greg took a moment to savor the feel of skin pressing into skin the entire length of their bodies, and then Ed recaptured his mouth. Greg broke the kiss to nip at Ed’s neck, letting his hands run over Ed’s back. Ed moaned and muttered things that Greg only caught part of. "…yeah…there…can’t believe…waited…wanted…since the first…gonna be good…can’t wait to fuck…"

Greg shuddered, biting down harder on Ed’s neck, causing him to hiss in a breath. _Yeah_ , he thought, _it will be good_.

Greg got his second shock of the night when, a few minutes later, Ed passed him the lube and rolled over, mumbling "Can’t wait anymore…"

Greg stroked a hand over Ed’s back and flank. He swallowed hard and eventually found enough of a voice to whisper, "Eddie, I’ve never…"

Ed snorted and turned his head to look back at him. "You’re a _doctor_ , Greg. I know you know where everything is. Make it happen."

Then it was Greg’s turn to laugh, collapsing onto his side and whacking at Ed’s arm. "Jesus Christ, did you really just tell me to draw on my vast experiences doing digital rectal exams while we’re having sex?"

Ed flipped up on his side, taking in Greg’s wiggling pointer finger and somewhat hysterical laughter. "No, I reminded you that you have an exceptional knowledge of human anatomy and indicated that I have every confidence in you." Ed’s hand closed around Greg’s, his pointer finger still extended. "And this is nothing like that. One, no gloves. Two, you’ll be enjoying it. Three, _I’ll_ be enjoying it. And four, this –" he kissed Greg’s finger – "is only the beginning."

A sharp wave of lust burned all the nervousness and inappropriate laughter out of Greg’s system and he swallowed thickly before leaning down to kiss Ed. Greg didn’t think of anything but Ed’s pleasure and his own for the rest of the evening.


	4. Shockwave

They fell into a routine after that, spending all their days off and half their weeknights together at Greg's place or at Ed's. They spent as much time together as possible at the hospital too, which these days meant grabbing breakfast together whenever they were both free. It was the only thing about breakfast Greg enjoyed, until the hospital hired a new caterer and the stale bagels were replaced with fresh, warm muffins every morning.

Greg had missed meeting Eddie in the cafeteria this morning thanks to a rush-hour pile-up, and now he was stuck in an incredibly boring meeting listening to someone who couldn't work powerpoint tell a room full of people things they already knew. He dutifully stared at the slide on pacemakers, but his mind was full of blueberry crumble, apple cinnamon, and banana nut muffins. His stomach growled and glanced around to see if anyone could tell he was fantasizing about quick breads instead of paying attention.

_BEEP BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEEP BEEP!_

Greg had to actively suppress a sigh of relief and he caught several envious expressions on his colleagues' faces. He stepped out of the conference, shooting the speaker an apologetic look and thumbed his pager. "TRAUMA 1862. ETA NOW. 25 M GSW CHEST. 60/41, 177. GCS 5, TUBED."

Greg thundered down the stairs to his trauma bay.

Michael Manner had been shot in the right chest by someone trying to rob the store where he worked. He ended up needing a chest tube for hemothorax, and, for a hairy minute there, Greg couldn't find the source of the bleeding that was tanking his blood pressure. Thankfully, when he checked the abdomen, the blood around the liver capsule lit up on ultrasound like a beacon.

"Winnie, can you please call whoever's on trauma surgery today and tell them we have a grade 4 liver laceration that needs emergent surgery? Then call the OR and have them set up the room."

"On it, Boss."

Greg pulled off his gloves and snapped them into the trash. Jules followed him out of the room. They stood at the counter in the bullpen, and Greg scribbled in the chart. "Any questions about today, Jules?"

"How did he end up with bleeding in the liver? Did the bullet go through it somehow? There wasn’t another wound, I looked myself."

"We’ll have to wait for the operative report to be positive, but I don’t think it was from the track of the bullet."

"What then?"

"The shockwave. When a bullet goes into a body, it pushes a shockwave in front of it. The liver is very delicate and highly vascularized, so it’s easy to tear and it bleeds like stink."

"Wow. I never would have thought…"

"Yeah, it’s crazy, what bullets do to a body."

They were quiet for a moment while Greg finished his note, and then the trauma surgery team bumped down the hallway with a gurney. Greg went to meet them.

"Lew!"

"Hey, Greg."

The two teams transferred the patient to the rolling gurney and portable monitors quickly. Greg gave his report as they were rolling down the hallway.

The group banged through main OR doors and ducked into the room always readied for trauma surgery. Greg turned and made sure Jules had grabbed a mask before entering the room. The OR nurses went about transferring the patient. Greg pulled all the imaging they had done downstairs up on the computer. Greg, Jules, and the surgeon looked at the screen together.

"Chest tube looks good," said Greg, "and I don’t see any other blood in the chest cavity. I see blood under the liver capsule though."

"Yeah, we’re probably going to have to do a partial resection. And he’ll need a lot of blood before this is over. Is someone contacting his next of kin?"

"My staff is on it. So far, no luck with his mother’s number."

"Okay, well, fax over a copy of your note when you finish it, and I’ll let you know how it goes when we’re done."

"Sounds good. Lew, this is my medical student, Jules Callaghan. Jules, this is Dr. Young, our chief trauma surgeon."

Lew offered her his hand. "Hi Jules, nice to meet you. You can scrub in if you’d like, but this one's going to be a mess, and I can’t promise you won’t get bumped out of the way to make room for other surgeons."

"No problem," said Jules. "I appreciate the invitation, but we have a required class in 15 minutes anyway."

"Another time, then." Lew nodded and then turned all of his attention back to his patient. Greg and Jules left the room, pulling off their masks.

"I should get going, Dr. Parker. That class is on the other side of campus."

"Sure thing, Jules. Go straight down that hall, through the double doors, and the main elevators will be on your left."

"Thank you, sir! I’ll see you later."

"You bet. Find me after lunch. We’ll go down to the basement and have the radiologist, Dr. Scarlatti, pull up some more ultrasound images for us so I can show you what I was looking at."

Greg watched her go and then headed the opposite direction, toward the surgeon’s lounge and free lunch. The soups that were always sent up to the surgeons' lounge had become exponentially better under the new catering contract.

"Greg!"

Greg turned around to see Ed jogging toward him.

"Hey! Whatcha doin' up here?"

"Just handed off a trauma to Lew."

Ed nodded. "Cool. Hey, do you have a minute? We should talk."

"What’s up?"

"Not here. Come on."

Greg followed Ed down the hallway, through the double doors, and into the men’s locker room.

"So, what’s up?" asked Greg as Ed kicked off his shoes and started changing clothes for afternoon clinic.

"You know the new caterer?" The question was muffled by the scrub top he was pulling over his head. "The muffin goddess?" Ed pulled on a light blue shirt from a dry cleaning bag.

Greg smiled. "Yeah."

"Well," Ed explained, exchanging his scrub bottoms for dress slacks, "Her name is Sophie Stephens and I have a date with her tonight. She’s making me cook for her."

Greg was glad Ed was busy throwing his OR shoes into his locker and putting on his dress shoes; he didn’t anyone to see the look that must have been on his face. Greg swallowed thickly.

"Have fun," he offered.

Something about his voice must have sounded off, because Ed’s head snapped up and he locked eyes with Greg.

Ed frowned. "Do we have a problem?"

"No, of course not."

"I thought… I didn’t…" Ed said softly. Finally, he found the words. "I don’t do exclusive, Greg. We’ve been friends for years; you know this about me."

"Yeah, I get it, Eddie. No problem." It took some effort to push the words out, but his voice sounded calm. It’s not like Ed had made him any kind of promises. Greg had always figured he was just a placeholder until Ed found something else, but damn if it didn’t sting.

"You sure?" Ed asked, waiting to be convinced.

"I’m sure."

Ed eyed him for a second and then went back to his locker, apparently satisfied with whatever he had seen in Greg’s face.

"Good. Besides, she’s really cool. I think you’d like her."

 _Wow, ouch._ "Yeah, I’m sure I would."

"So what the hell am I going to cook?" whined Ed, shutting his locker. Greg offered suggestions as the pair headed down the hallway.


	5. Exit Wounds

Greg poured two cups of coffee, handing one to Jules.

"So, Jules, you’re halfway through your rotation. What do you think so far?"

"It’s…intense. It’s exhausting and miraculous and heart-breaking and I’ve never felt so cynical or so hopeful about medicine. I love it."

Greg smiled at her. "Yeah. The ER can be like that and trauma doubly so."

"Saving lives, living the dream," Jules said, with equal parts sarcasm and awe. But the giant grin on her face gave her away.

_BEEP BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEEP BEEP!_

Greg thumbed the pager. "TRAUMA 2095. ETA 5. 19 M GSW RLE. 88/52, 144. GCS 9"

He stashed his coffee on top of a counter as he hurried back through to the main trauma bay, Jules right behind him.

"Listen up, people! We’ve got a 19 year old boy who’s been shot in the right leg. He’s hypotensive and tachycardic. I need the ultrasound and hang 4 liters of saline in — Winnie, where’s he going?"

"Bay 2, Boss."

"--In trauma bay 2. We may need to intubate, so get me an airway cart. Call X-Ray, call Ortho, call Vascular, and start working on some O+. We’ve got less than 5 minutes, people."

As the EMTs approached less than a minute later, one started giving report to Greg. "This is Carl Cooper, age 19. He was standing in front of a gas station and got tagged in a drive-by about 15 minutes ago. He denies loss of consciousness. His only apparent wounds are on his right thigh and right calf. They both look through-and-through. He’s bleeding pretty good. Pressure was 88/52 when we got there. He’s had 2 liters and is up to 101/67 now, stable for the last 10 minutes or so."

There was a flurry of activity as the patient was transferred, the EMTs left, and Greg’s staff exposed the patient, hooked up monitors and did a primary survey.

"Carl? Can you hear me? You’re at Toronto Team Health Hospital. I’m Dr. Parker and I have to examine you."

The patient nodded and Greg got to work, calling out to Winnie, who was charting, as he went. "Airway patent, good breath sounds bilaterally. Normal heart sounds. Pupils 3mm, equal, and reactive to light. BP 115/72, pulse 111. FAST negative, no blood in the abdomen. I’ve got four wounds right, 2 in the lateral thigh and 2 in the dorsal calf. Good pulses distally, capillary refill 3 seconds, equal bilaterally." They rolled the patient onto his side. "No deformities, no step-offs. Good tone, no blood in the vault."

"Carl?" asked Greg, "You’ve been shot in the leg, buddy. We’re going to take some x-rays and figure out the best way to get you fixed up. Do you have any questions?"

"It hurts," the teen said through clenched teeth.

"I know. I know it does. I’m going to get you something for the pain. Can you tell me who to call? Do you have family in town?"

The kid rattled off his mother’s name and number and the chaplain wrote it all down.

"Okay. We’ll call your mom and tell her you’re here. We’re going to do some more tests, see if you need surgery on that leg. Okay?"

The kid was tearful, but nodded.

"All right" Greg said from the head of the bed, glancing over at the vital signs monitor. The kid’s pressure had come up, but he was still tachycardic. "Push 2 of morphine and watch his vitals. Tag the wounds and get a portable x-ray of the leg, 2 views. Start the saline, hold the blood, and get us a Foley."

Everyone peeled off gloves and scattered, working on the next step. Greg led Jules out to the computer station in the center of the trauma bay. He grabbed his coffee and sat, gesturing for her to sit beside him.

"Okay. So. Why is it important to count the bullet holes in the initial assessment?"

"To document how many times he got shot for the trial?"

"I’m a doc, not a cop. I don’t care who shot him."

Jules stared at the ceiling and Greg waited for her to connect the dots. "Because we need to know how many wounds he had when he came in?"

"Well, that’s important too. But it’s not why I’m counting. Try this one. What would it tell me if he only had 3 bullet holes instead of 4?"

"Oh. Three holes would mean we’re missing a bullet. We would expect he still had a bullet lodged in his leg. But this guy has 4 holes, two each for two bullets."

Greg nodded approvingly. "Always count the bullet holes. If you’ve got an odd number, you’re missing an exit wound and you’ll end up having to go looking for a bullet."

"Films are up!" came a shout from the x-ray tech.

Greg pulled their patient’s x-rays up on the computer and laughed.

"Of course, that thing I told you about even and odd numbers of exit wounds has a caveat, Jules." He gestured at the films, which clearly show two bullet-shaped bright white objects in the patient’s thigh. "An even number of holes can mean all entries have an associated exit wound. Or you can also have an even number of bullets still inside the body."

Greg picked up the phone and dialed. "Wordy, Greg Parker here."

"Hey Greg, what’s up?"

"I’m calling about the right leg GSW that just came into the trauma bay."

"Yeah, we’re on our way down now. Have you seen the films yet? Any compound fractures?"

"Amazingly, no. Looks like one simple femur fracture, no vascular compromise evident clinically. But you’ve got two bullets in there to fish out. Look like 9 mils."

"Fragments?"

"No, they appear intact."

"Great, I’m almost there."

"Thanks, Wordy."

Greg caught sight of Wordy coming down the hall and hung up. Wordy looked at the films, adjusting the contrast and flipping between the AP and lateral. Then he went in to talk with the patient and do his exam. When he came out of the room, Greg had a cup of coffee waiting for him, 2 creams, no sugar.

"What do you think?"

"I think you’re right. No vascular compromise, one simple fracture, two foreign bodies. It’s not emergent, we could just splint it and operate tomorrow, but it's my day to stay late and I can do Mr. Cooper this afternoon. Unless he’s not stable from your end?"

"Nah, he’s been stable and conscious since he got here. No other trauma, just the leg. I’ll transfer him to you."

"Okay, I’ll call and get him on my schedule."

"Sounds good. Wordy, I don’t think you’ve met our medical student yet. This is Jules Callaghan. Jules, this is Dr. Kevin Wordsworth, our Chief of Orthopedic Surgery. Jules wants to do Emergency Medicine."

Wordy shook her hand. "It’s nice to meet you, Jules. If you want to scrub in on this case, I’d be happy to teach you about trauma orthopedics."

"Yeah, yeah, you won’t win her over to the Dark Side of Surgery that easily," groused Greg.

"Hey, now, let’s just let her make up her own mind about that, huh?" Wordy grinned back at Greg.

"Don’t let him fool you, Jules, Wordy used to be all about the emergencies too. He put himself through college and the first part of medical school working as a paramedic. This whole orthopedic surgery thing is just to get him home by 3:30 so he can pick his girls up from school."

"Just another awesome thing about a surgical specialty. While these guys in the ER work 7am-7pm, or, worse, 7pm-7am, we start every day around 4am and finish up most days by 3:30. Makes it a lot easier to have a family life."

"Are you seriously trying to recruit her by talking up a 4am start to every day as an _advantage_?"

"I’m not trying to recruit anyone. I’m offering a medical student a unique opportunity to scrub in on a trauma surgery. Whaddaya say?"

Jules turned to Greg, questioning look on her face. "Whatever you want, Jules. No wrong answer. If you’re interested, go. If you’re not, pass."

"I think I’d like to follow the patient back then. I haven’t been in on a trauma surgery yet."

"Okay, great," Wordy said. "I’ll have someone call down here when we’re set up. You know where the OR is?"

"I think so."

"I’ll make sure she gets there," Greg said. "Thanks, Wordy."

They monitored the patient for the next 45 minutes and he remained stable. Transport showed up to take him to the OR.

"That’s our cue," Greg said to Jules. "Hey, Winnie? I’ll be upstairs for about 10 minutes. I have my cell if you need me."

"Okay, Boss," Winnie called back.

Greg led Jules up the back stairwell to the second floor ORs. He swiped his card to get into the back desk area.

"This is the back end of the ORs, where all the staff comes in." Greg pointed out important rooms as they walked. "Scrubs are available over there, the locker room is here, and that is the doctor’s lounge. They bring breakfast, lunch, and sodas up for the surgeons. You’re welcome to eat there while you’re on our service. Back here is the door to the operating rooms. You have to be wearing scrubs and a hat to go through those red doors. Shoe covers are not required, but are strongly recommended."

They geared up and push through the main doors. Greg checked the OR tracking board and saw that their patient was headed into room 9.

"Okay, Jules, what size gloves do you wear?"

"Um, small?"

"Hold up your hand."

"Hm. Okay, let’s try 5 1/2 and 6 on you. And you’ll want an XS gown." Greg pulled the supplies off the shelf. "Scrub techs pull gloves and gowns for the surgeons and residents, but students should pull their own stuff."

Greg stopped in the hallway outside room 9. "Masks are in front of every door. You need those as soon as the scrub techs open anything sterile, whether the patient is in the room or not. Once you help the nurses get the patient moved over to the OR table and prepped for surgery, you’ll come back out and get goggles and scrub your hands. Have you scrubbed before?"

Jules shook her head.

"Okay, no problem, Wordy will show you how. So this is your first time in the OR?"

"Yeah."

"Just a couple rules and you’ll be set. 1) If you don’t know, say so. This goes for questions they ask you and instruments they tell you to pass and retractors they have you hold. 2) If you’re going to pass out, for the love of god, step away from the table. They won’t make fun of you for that. Well, they might mock you a little bit. But they will _kill_ you if you pass out into their sterile field. And, 3) You’re about a foot shorter than Dr. Wordsworth. Ask for a couple step stools. They have them in every room, and there’s no sense in you being uncomfortable or unable to see. Any questions?"

"No," she smiled. "Thanks Dr. Parker."

They turned as their patient is rolled down the hall. Greg held the door and stepped out of the way of the gurney. Jules grabbed a mask and followed the surgical team into the room, waving at Greg through the door.

Greg was still smiling at her enthusiasm when he ran into Ed on his way out of the OR.

"Greg! Hi! What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?" Ed leered.

Ed’s flirting stung now that it didn’t mean anything. "Just brought the student back and helped her find Wordy and our trauma patient. I told her she could eat in the surgeon’s lounge, so no giving her any grief about it."

"Aw, you take away all my fun," Ed said as he elbowed Greg in the side. "Walk with me?"

Greg followed Ed into the locker room and watched as Ed did his evening Mister Rogers routine, swapping out his shoes and pulling on a fresh set of scrubs. "So, I’ve been meaning to ask where you’ve been hiding," Ed said as he pulled his shirt off.

There was a trail of love bites going across his chest and down the left side of his ribcage. Greg looked away, swallowing roughly.

"It feels like we haven’t hung out in ages," Ed continued. Greg turned so his back was against the lockers and he was looking at the wall. He didn’t want to see where else that woman had bruised, sucked, or scratched Ed’s skin. They had been dating a few weeks now and Greg was keeping his distance, letting Ed figure out if what he and Sophie had was something real.

"Been busy," Greg said as casually as he could manage.

"You busy now?" Ed’s tone was low as he tied his sneakers.

Greg was tempted. Part of him wanted to reclaim Ed, to make him forget about anyone else, leave his own marks all over that smooth skin for the caterer to see. But mostly, he just missed spending time with Eddie. On the other hand, he didn’t think he could stand trying to be friends again with Ed right now -- with or without benefits -- if it meant listening to Ed talk about his dates with Sophie, just waiting for him to fall in love with her. "Yeah. Got plans."

Ed looked up at him, forehead crinkled, but nodded. "Okay. You let me know."

Greg nodded wordlessly and escaped the locker room.


	6. Grounded

"Jules! I thought you’d be gone already."

"Nope." Jules smiled as she approached the bullpen, "Today’s my last day."

"You know," Greg said, "most people take the last day off, to study for the test. You’ve worked hard this month, and it’s been quiet all morning anyway."

A small yellow stress ball flew at Greg, thunking into the side of his head and then dropping to the floor by his chair. He leaned over and picked it up, frowning at it. "Ow! Kira, that hurt!"

"Sorry, Boss," she said in a voice that wasn’t, "but you know the rules. No one says the 'Q' word and goes unpunished."

"Yeah, yeah, everyone’s so superstitious. Stop undermining me in front of the student." Greg looked back at Jules, who was trying valiantly not to smile. "It’s been _slow_ so far today. You can go home if you want to." 

"What, and miss all the fun? I’ll stay if it’s all the same to you. It’s my last chance in the ER for the year."

Greg grinned at Kira. "See? I told you she was one of us!"

"Enjoy your last day, Jules," Kira said. "I hope the Boss didn’t jinx us too badly."

"We are men and women of science, Kira," Greg said in a lofty voice laced with a smile. "We should know better than to think that I can single-handedly cause people all over the city to spontaneously have accidents and come into the emergency room just by saying the word 'quiet’."

Kira stuck her tongue out at Greg. He set the stress ball back on her desk and led Jules off to get coffee.

"The 'Q' word?" she asked as soon as they were in the breakroom.

"Old nursing superstition. If you say it’s quiet, you get slammed with patients ten minutes later. Until the next trauma arrives though, how about we run over to the regular ER side and help out?"

"Sounds good."

They walked out further down the hallway until it opened out into the larger non-traumatic emergency care area. Greg led Jules into the small office in the center of the bullpen and handed one of the two cups of coffee he was carrying to the woman sitting at the desk.

"Jules, this is Dr. Sabine. Donna, this is Jules Callaghan. Today’s her last day on the rotation, but she’s interested in Emergency Medicine, so I’m sure you’ll see her again."

"Hi Jules, nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too, Dr. Sabine."

"We came by to see if there was anything we could do for you, since it’s pretty… _slow_ …on our side."

Donna blinked at Greg and then looked back over to Jules. "He said 'quiet’, didn’t he? He said 'quiet' and one of the nurses threw something at his head. He never learns." She looked back at Greg. "You never learn. And all the nurses love you anyway. How do you do that?"

Greg scratched at the back of his neck. "Focus, Sabine. Extra bodies to see patients."

"Right," she said, looking back over at her big white board. "I’ve seen 1, 4, 8, and 9. The guy in 2 thinks he has appendicitis, the woman in 3 is dizzy, and the woman in 7 has some sort of injury. I’ll see 3 since I know Mabel – she comes in a lot."

Greg nodded. "Jules? You want blood or belly pain?"

"Either way."

"Okay. Well then why don’t you see the injury. Maybe if you get to know her, she’ll let you stitch her up. I’ll take care of possible appendicitis, and I will let you know if we really do have a surgical appy so you can see the physical exam findings."

Greg talked to the patient, and did a brief exam. Greg was fairly certain the young man was feeling poorly today because he had a calculus test that afternoon and not because of his appendix, but he ordered a basic CBC on him just to be sure. As he was signing his orders, Jules came out of her room.

"Whatcha got, Jules?"

"A very nice, otherwise completely healthy woman who cut herself with a sharp bade. It’s a fairly deep laceration and maybe 2cm long, on her left pointer finger."

"Okay. Do you want me to see if she’ll let you sew?"

"Actually, it turns out she’s an employee here, and cut herself on the job, so I think I’d better let you take care of her."

"Fair enough." Greg switched clipboards with her. "Keith Miller is a 19 year old college student who has a calculus exam this afternoon. He woke up with crampy pain in the right lower quadrant of his abdomen which has since worsened. No fever, no chills, no vomiting, no anorexia. Diarrhea times 3 today. On exam, he had no guarding, but is diffusely tender to palpation. What are the hallmarks of appendicitis?"

"Right lower quadrant pain with rebound tenderness, sometimes preceded by peri-umbilical pain. Fever. And leukocytosis?"

"Perfect. I ordered a CBC, so when it gets back, see if his white count is elevated. Even if it’s not appendicitis, he may have some other kind of gastro-intestinal infection. Or it may just be nerves. But we’ll give him a good once-over before we let him go."

Jules nodded and started flipping through the chart, so Greg headed for room 7. In retrospect, it was foolish not to have looked at the name on the chart first. Ed’s caterer was sitting in the visitor’s chair instead of on the bed. Her left hand was bundled in a towel, and she was holding it in the air. Greg took a deep breath and pulled his professionalism around him like a cloak.

"Miss Stephens? I’m Dr. Parker. My medical student tells me you cut yourself?"

"Call me Sophie, please. Yeah, I was chopping celery and nicked my finger. Stupid. But it looked deep enough that it might need stitches, so I came here."

"Okay," Greg said, pulling on gloves. "Let’s take a look."

As Sophie unwrapped her hand, Greg pulled the Mayo stand over so she could rest it between them. Greg gently uncurled her fingers and inspected the wound.

"Yeah, this is going to need about three stitches." Greg rooted around in the cabinets until he found local anesthetic, sterile water, and a suture set. "I’ll numb it up first, then we’ll wash it out really well and sew it up."

"This will burn a bit, but once it’s in, you shouldn’t feel anything else." 

Sophie nodded, taking a deep breath and biting her lower lip. Greg injected the lidocaine from the inside of the wound out, to minimize the pain of the needle stick. He used the sterile water to flush the wound out and then rubbed some betadine onto the area. Then he readied his suture set, opening his needle drivers and pickups, the suture packets, and a pair of sterile gloves. He put his gloves on and put down the sterile drape. Sophie laid her hand on top of it. Greg grabbed the suture with the needle drivers in his right hand and cupped Sophie’s hand with his left. He turned it a little to get a better angle and then poked experimentally at her finger with his needle.

"Does this hurt? You’ll feel pressure, but there shouldn’t be any sharp pain."

He looked up at her. She shook her head. "No, it’s numb."

"Okay then, here we go."

"Dr. Parker, you aren’t by chance Ed Lane’s Greg, are you?"

Greg froze with the needle hovering just above Sophie’s finger. "I’m Ed’s friend, yes."

"More than his friend, I think," she said, grinning.

Greg looked up at this woman he was supposed to be helping, awkwardly holding her hand through his glove, sitting so close their knees brushed. "It’s…I’m…We…" Greg started, with no idea how any of those sentences should end. Finally, he settled on, "You don’t have to worry about me, Sophie. He’s yours now."

She laughed. "As if Ed Lane could _belong_ to anyone. You know he’s not like that, Greg – may I call you Greg? – and I’m not like that either. Whatever Ed and I are, it’s an open thing, and it probably always will be."

Greg wasn’t sure about that. He had been the guy-on-the-side before, and in his experience, there was nothing that a lonely, overworked ER doc could offer that would be worth the effort to a person who could just focus all their energy on being part of an exclusive couple. He took a breath and made sure his hands weren’t shaking, and then started sewing Sophie’s cut. "That’s easy enough to say now. Later, though… Anyway, you don’t have to worry. I won’t stand in your way."

"First off, I am not _worried_ about you. I just want to get to know you. Ed thinks you’re pretty amazing, and he generally has good taste in people. Secondly," Sophie waited until Greg met her eyes, "Ed loves you. He likes me an awful lot, but, Greg, he _loves_ you. And you know how big that is for him."

Greg’s hands were definitely shaking now, but fortunately all he had left to do was cut the ends of his knot. He busied himself clearing up and avoided looking directly at Sophie.

"I’ll have a nurse come in and put a bandage on that. And we’ll give you some rubber gloves to wear in the kitchen. Keep it as dry as you can. Stitches can come out in a week or 10 days."

"Do I come back here for that?"

"Sure, or Eddie can take them out for you."

"He’ll be jealous that you operated on me. I guess we should let him remove the stitches," she said, with her tongue touching the edge of her grin and eyebrows raising slightly, inviting him in on the joke. Greg found himself smiling back at her. As awkward as all of this should be, Sophie just had a way of making him feel like he belonged. "Now stop hiding from Ed, if that’s what you’ve been doing. He's been whining that he hasn’t seen you in ages. Don’t think I won’t cut my other hand just to get back down here, if I think you need your ass kicked."

Greg laughed. "Whiney Ed? God help us all. Fine, I’ll call him back, but only to spare you bodily harm. I’m usually on the trauma side of the ER, and I shudder to think what you'd have to do to get in to see me there."

"Oh? Is trauma fun?"

"Well, I wouldn’t call it _fun_ exactly, but it’s very rewarding. And normally it keeps me pretty busy."

Right one cue, his pager howled. They both laughed.

"Go then. I’ll see you around, Greg Parker."

"It was nice to meet you, Sophie Stephens." Greg was surprised to find that could say it with perfect sincerity. He left the room feeling lighter than he had in a while and thumbed his pager.

_TRAUMA 2264 ETA 15. 47 M. BURN. 150/100, 128, GCS 14._

Greg headed back to Donna’s desk. "We’ve got a trauma coming in 15 minutes. Seven is ready for discharge." He slid the chart into the rack. "Jules, did we get labs back on 3?"

"Stone cold normal."

"Okay then," said Donna. "I’ll do the paperwork. Thanks for your help, guys."

* * *

The burn turned out to be a very minor electrical burn an unlucky electrician got wiring a new subdivision, but it was a good opportunity to teach Jules about burns and burn care in the trauma setting, and to watch her interact with a conscious patient. She was really great with people and Greg had every confidence in her.

"Well, Jules, our shift is officially over. Sorry to keep you so long on your last day. It’s been fantastic having you this month and if you ever want to talk about a career in Emergency Medicine or do an internship here, just email me."

"I learned _so much_ this month. It was an incredible experience. Thank you very much, Dr. Parker!" Jules was beaming as she shook his hand.

"Anytime."

Greg checked out to the night physician and pulled out his phone. The five unreturned calls and nine unanswered text messages from Ed stared back at him. Greg took a deep breath and texted Ed for the first time in weeks. "You still here? Dinner?"

Ed texted back almost instantly. "Hell yeah. Our exit in 5 min."

Greg walked to the hospital’s west doors, the ones that opened out into the employee parking lot. Ed was already waiting there when he arrived, wearing his biggest grin.

"Man, I am _starving_. Where do you want to go?"

"I don’t care," Greg said as they pushed through the doors and started across the parking lot. They weren’t more than twelve steps from the hospital when they caught sight of Sophie Stephens standing next to a blue Honda, digging around in an oversized bag balanced on her knee. Sophie fished a ring of keys out of the bottom of the bag with a triumphant "Aha!"

"Hey Soph! We’re getting dinner. You want to come with?" Ed belatedly looked to Greg to make sure the invitation was okay, and Greg gave him a small but genuine smile.

"Where to?" Sophie asked.

The three of them ended up at Timmy's a few blocks from the hospital. Greg was contemplating Panini choices and trying to resist the urge to flee when he heard it.

"Sophie!" called a tall, thin man from across the restaurant.

"Jason! Hey!" she called back, looping her arm through Ed’s. Greg tried to edge away, but Sophie snagged his arm with her other elbow and marched them over to meet her friend.

"Girl, where _have_ you been? I haven’t seen you at the clubs in months!"

"New job. I’ve got to get up at 4 every morning, so that kind of put an end to my late night social life. Besides, I’ve got someone I think I’ll be holding onto for a while."

She smiled up at Ed. _And there it is_ , thought Greg. For all their talk about freedom and openness, at the end of the day it would be Eddie and Sophie together and Greg on the outside looking in.

" _You_ settling down? Never!"

"I’m not settling, I’m just…staying for a while," she grinned. "Jason, this is my boyfriend, Ed," she nodded the man on her left, "and his boyfriend, Greg," she finished, nodding to her right.

Jason looked at the three of them, then fixed Ed with a knowing grin. "You lucky bastard. How did you land both of them?"

Before Ed had even opened his mouth, Greg and Sophie chimed in sarcastic, eye-rolling chorus, "He has _excellent_ hand skills." All four of them laughed at that, and Greg chanced a look at Ed and Soph. Neither looked as awkward as he felt. It looked like they thought it was perfectly okay for the three of them to be there, together like this, being open about their arrangement in front of this man and whoever else might be around. It all seemed strangely forward to Greg, and he felt his stomach drop as adrenaline course through his veins. The sensation was something akin to the rush he got as a teen when performing a dare, and the jolt of fear at being exposed in public that usually followed.

Greg picked up his order and found the booth that Jason had staked out, sliding into the opposite side. Ed slid in right behind him, and Sophie sat next to Jason a few seconds later.

"So, how did everybody meet?" asked Jason as they tucked into their food.

"Greg and I met in med school," Ed said. "On surgery, I think."

Greg had seen Ed around before their third year of medical school, but they became best friends while on their surgery rotation. Greg took surgery very seriously, testing himself and the specialty to try to help him decide between surgery and emergency medicine for a career. In the beginning, Ed’s humor and seemingly cavalier attitude grated on Greg. But the first time they actually worked together, Greg realized how serious and scary-competent Ed was when it was time to be professional.

Greg smiled at Ed. "This guy was famous on our surgery rotation for putting up these motivational posters in the student room. The first one said, 'RETRACT LIKE A CHAMPION TODAY!' to help us all be Zen about holding retractors in seven hour long surgeries. There was a new poster up every Monday morning for two months."

Sophie laughed. "I can’t imagine Ed drawing on posterboard. Tell me everything, Greg. Did he use bubble letters? _Was there glitter involved?_ "

"Nah, I think he used highlighters. Honestly, there wasn’t time on surgery for _sleep_ , let alone for art projects. But those posters did raise morale. My favorite one was the one from the halfway point of the rotation. It had already been the longest month of our lives, and we had another four weeks left. We walk in that morning, most of us having stayed up all night to study for the mid-rotation exam, and hung up over the door was 'ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?' And the answer was such a resounding NO that we couldn’t help but laugh."

Greg caught Ed’s eye and saw that same mischievous glint in his eye he remembered from all those years ago. Ed was smiling like a maniac and Greg felt an answering grin stretching his own face. "And, of course, on the day of the final exam, it was 'HAIL CAESAR, WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE SALUTE YOU!' It was the only thing that kept me sane those two months."

"Yeah," Ed drawled, "I may have been the class clown, but Greg is the one who kept us all together. He listed all the day's lectures on the board and he made sure there was always bread and peanut butter on hand in the student room. And he helped every single person who asked for it with homework or presentations or projects or suturing skills. When we graduated, he was the one the student body elected to speak on behalf of our class."

Ed shot Greg a soft smile that made Greg blush. He deliberately turned away from what he saw in Ed’s eyes and looked at Jason instead. "Yeah, we go way back. I didn’t officially meet Sophie until today though. She cut herself and I stitched her up.

"You cut yourself! Where?"

Ed’s eyes were comically large. Sophie rolled her eyes at him, picking her hand up from under the table and holding it out so he could see her bandaged pointer. "I’m fine. It was just a nick, and Greg patched me right up."

"How did you meet Sophie, Jason?" Greg asked

"We were in the same dorm freshman year of college. We met in the TV room like a week into the semester. Sophie had this magic way of making microwave popcorn awesome. And not just, you know, not-horrifically-burnt good, but like _actively_ awesome. And she didn’t mind when I made catty comments about whatever TV show was on."

"Salt and snark," Sophie added. "It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship." She nudged Jason’s shoulder. "And I met this one," she told him, nodding at Ed, "when he was waxing poetic about my muffin. The first morning of my new job, before the cafeteria was even officially open, these two came in, poured themselves an obscene amount of coffee, and then bought like three muffins each. They were back every morning for a week, and then Ed here came in alone one morning and told the cashier he was going to marry me. So I made an Italian Wedding Soup for lunch."

"I asked her out on the spot. She made me _cook_ for her!" Ed pouted at the remembered cruelty.

"Jason, he burned _soup_! It was pathetic. And…weirdly endearing." She smiled at Ed, who covered her uninjured hand with his.

Greg felt a twinge of something, but then he felt Ed’s other hand squeeze his knee. He looked stupidly down at the table, as if he would be able to see Ed’s hand through the laminate and confirm it was really there. He didn’t understand why Ed would hold on to him when he could be reaching for Sophie with both hands.

When he looked back up, Sophie was lacing her fingers in and out of Ed’s wile chatting with Jason about mutual acquaintances and Ed was smiling at him.

* * *

Dinner became a twice-weekly ritual for the three of them. Ed had been right; he did like Sophie. She was smart and funny and sweet and sarcastic, and she had this warm and open way about her that always put Greg at ease.

After dinner, Ed would go home with one or the other of them, usually with whoever had the next day off. The third week, Ed had to work late and Greg was surprised to find he and Sophie had just as much fun at dinner without him. By the fifth week of their dinner dates, Greg realized that the only disappointment he felt now when Ed left with Sophie was tied up in wishing he could see the two of them together. Greg did his best to put those thoughts out of his mind. His best friend wouldn’t thank him for fantasizing about his sex life, and surely he was misreading the flirty grin and raised eyebrows Sophie shot him from the passenger side of Ed’s SUV?


	7. Perfect Storm

They called it a perfect storm. Cold air coming in from the Atlantic met up with a front sweeping south over Ontario and Toronto ended up in a the middle of a blizzard that lasted three days, left 75% of the city without power, and caused thousands of car accidents. Bad weather, ice and snowfall had all been predicted, but no one expected the relentless storm to drop 46 inches of snow in 72 hours.

The hospital’s generators were working fine, and the hospital was never in danger of going dark, but the staff working there soon realized they were stuck. In other departments, non-essential personnel had been sent home when the weather first rolled in, leaving just a skeleton crew on-site. But the ER, the ICU, and the trauma ORs were still fully staffed. Greg gathered his crew around the bullpen and addressed them when it became apparent the weather was taking a violent turn for the worst.

"It looks like we’re in for a hell of a storm, people. As of right now, all roads and airports are closed, all the medi-flight choppers are grounded, and EMS is only responding to level 1 emergencies, and only in areas they can safely send a crew to. It’s going to be pretty empty down here for the next few hours. Use that time to sleep if you can, because you are all on-duty until the weather lets up enough for your counterparts to come in to relieve you. It looks like that might be another 24 hours.

"As soon as the roads start to clear, we’ll have emergency crews bringing people in here by the hundreds. We’ll set up a make-shift triage area in the atrium and see as many people as we can as quickly as we can. It will be chaos on a scale we’ve not seen before at this hospital. When you’ve been awake for countless hours straight, when you’ve seen more patients in a day than you normally do in a week, when you realize just how many are still waiting, when the weathermen tell us there’s no end in sight for the storm _or our shifts_ –" a few people laughed "- that’s the time that it is most important that you all remember our motto. Connect, respect, protect. Show empathy, treat people with dignity, and, above all, do no harm. No matter how exhausted we get, don’t forget who we are, what we are, what we _do_ … Questions? …Okay. Go rest up. We’re in for a long night."

Greg did not use the lull in ER traffic to relax. He and Winnie rounded up blankets and gurneys and cots from every available place in the hospital, and started planning how to manage overflow triage. Hours ticked by with the only traffic being one ambulance and three walk-ins. The longer the lull lasted, the more Greg worried about the flood that would bombard them as soon as the storm let up. As he passed the unit clerk’s desk again, Winnie pushed a chair and a sandwich towards him.

"Boss, you’re going to wear a hole in the floor with that pacing."

He took the seat and the sandwich and, in a rare moment of openness, said, "Winnie, it’s going to be bad. And the longer it takes to come, the worse it’s going to be."

"Yeah. I know. But there’s nothing else for us to do but wait. All the rooms we have – and some that didn’t exist until half an hour ago – are prepped and ready. The supplies have all been restocked. And I’m not just talking about assembling IV kits and finding extra linens, Boss, every printer on the floor is filled with paper. We are as ready as we can be down here. And all of the trauma surgeons and OR staff and anyone else that won’t get a break again once it starts are resting. You should be resting—"

Winnie broke off and they both listened to the sound of a helicopter approaching.

"It’s starting," Greg said.

"In five minutes. Finish your sandwich," Winnie said.

* * *

The first eight hours were a constant deluge of the injured and the sick. Greg watched his people as closely as he could as he ducked from one bed to the next assessing patients. As the night shift tripped over the 35-hour mark, Greg made sure people were resting in turns for a few hours at least. He even agreed to let Dr. Rousseau from radiology see some patients while he took a nap, provided they promised to wake him if he was needed. Four hours later, Greg was back at his post and Raf went upstairs to relieve the ICU attending for a few hours.

Greg was making his way back out to triage when he heard a familiar voice ask, "What can I do to help?"

"Eddie. What are you doing down here?"

"We’ve cleared our board upstairs. Well, neurosurgery has at least. Funny thing, Wordy didn’t want my help with the Ortho stuff. So I thought I’d head down here and see if you’d take me."

"I am unbelievably glad to see you, buddy. We’ve got triage set up in the atrium, minor injuries in the ER waiting room, major stuff back here. And the whole west hallway is dedicated to the emergency crews for the power and gas companies, the paramedics, and all the other unlucky bastards who are out in this weather trying to put things right. Those injuries are mostly frostnip and lacerations. Until we find another person for you to operate on, I’m going to send you over to them. Patch 'em up, sew 'em up, and get them back out there as fast as possible. We’re lucky they even came in for treatment, and if we don’t see them by the time their crew is ready to go, most of those guys will walk right out of here and get back on the job."

"Uh. Okay. Greg, you know it’s been a while since I’ve sewed on conscious people, right? And I’m pretty sure I haven’t treated frost nip since medical school."

Greg looked at him. "Eddie, the only person I’ve got back there right now is a dentist who came in because his wife slipped and broke her foot."

Ed laughed. "All hands on deck, eh?"

"Good man, Eddie. There are big bins filled with all the supplies we have set up on that table. Glue what you can, sew what you can’t, and you’ll have to do your own dressings. I can’t spare any nurses."

"Gottcha, Boss." 

"Don’t call me that!"

"I work in the ER now, so I get to call you 'Boss' just like everyone else."

Greg rolled his eyes. Ed mock-saluted and headed toward the west end of the ER, stopping to get a coffee and use the phone briefly.

Things didn’t slow enough for Greg to go check on that part of his ER again for another two hours.

Five men in Toronto Power Company overalls had just come in through the external door marked _Fire Exit Only_. Someone had put a few layers of duck tape over the latch to keep it from locking. Greg could only assume building maintenance was aware of this, since no fire alarms had been triggered. He was surprised to here Sophie’s voice from amidst the circle of men.

"Yeah, they can probably glue that. Go see Dr. Clapper in Room 1… You, they’re going to have to sew. Dr. Lane in Room 2. Anyone else hurt? Okay then. There’s coffee, hot soup, and sandwiches over here."

The group disappeared into what was normally a linen storage room. Confused, Greg made his way further into the hallway. He first came to the door to the supply room. It was propped open and a sign reading "ROOM 1" had been scribbled on printer paper and taped to the door. Inside, Dr. Clapper was washing a man’s hand into a bucket and blotting it dry.

"…No, I’m actually a dentist."

His patient laughed. "That’s okay, I’m an accountant at the power company. But I live close enough to walk to work, so I came in to help fill out the emergency crews."

Greg continued down the hall toward the resident’s office, where the man Sophie had directed to see Ed was standing in the hallway. The door to the office opened and a paramedic Greg recognized as one of the flight crew stepped out.

"Thanks, doc!" he called, waving at Ed with his non-bandaged hand.

"Anytime, Brad. You guys be safe out there!"

Ed’s next patient stepped into the room, and Ed held the door for Greg. 

"Everything good here, Ed?"

"Yeah, doin' fine. You need me in the OR?"

"Nah, just came to see how you were." 

Greg stepped into the room and saw that Ed had moved all three computes onto one desk and made a make-shift exam table out of the other two. Suture sets and sterile supplies sat in bins underneath. He turned to the patient who was sitting up on the table with his hat off, a gash on the side of his face oozing blood. "I’m Dr. Parker and this is Dr. Lane. How are you, sir?"

"Danny Redding," the guy said as he shook Greg’s hand. "I’m all right, just hit my head."

Ed looked at him sharply. "Any loss of consciousness? Changes in vision or hearing? Were you dizzy at all when this happened?"

Danny laughed. "No, I just tried to pull my hat back down over my ears while holding a pair of pliers. Just a stupid little cut, I didn’t pass out or anything."

Greg smiled. "Okay, no problem. We just want to make sure you’re okay is all. Dr. Lane will get you all fixed up."

Greg let himself out as Ed started to irrigate the wound and made his way toward what used to be the linen room. When he pushed open the door, he saw a ring of chairs around a cart from the cafeteria that held the crock-pots that usually lived in the surgeon’s lounge, a large carafe of coffee, and a heaping plate of sandwiches under plastic wrap. The men and women in the room munched on sandwiches and sipped coffee. Sophie was ladling soup into Styrofoam cups and putting lids on them. When she saw Greg, she passed him a cup of soup and a sandwich.

"I set up food for your people too, but I’m guessing you haven’t eaten yet."

Greg shook his head. "Sophie…this is incredible. What you guys have done back here…"

"Is nothing," she interrupted. "Just some ham sandwiches and chicken soup. How’s it looking out there?"

"It’s better. We’re making our way through backlog. Thankfully, the influx of patients we got when the roads first started opening has slowed. And with you all keeping the emergency crews patched up and warmed up, we only have the usual stuff to deal with out there."

Mr. Redding came in then, face freshly stitched and hat pulled back on. Sophie handed him a sandwich wrapped in plastic, and two lidded cups that she had set aside earlier. Seeing their last crewmate was ready, the rest of the people in Sophie’s break room stood, finishing their food and throwing their cups and napkins away.

"Thanks, Miss Sophie," several of them chorused as they left.

"You all be careful out there!" she replied.

It filled Greg’s heart up, seeing these dedicated people who had already done so much, heading back out to work more. He felt pride in his community and was thankful his hospital could play a part in keeping everyone going.

"Sophie…" he started again, choking on the fullness in his throat. "You’re amazing…"

"This? This is nothing. I’m just helping free up your time, so you can go fix the broken bones and send people to surgery and run the codes. Feeding people, I can do. I can do that part, and you can go take care of everyone else out there."

Greg was pretty sure Sophie could do _anything_ she took it into her head to try. He looked at her, trying to figure out how to tell her how proud he was to know her in a way that she would hear when Ed and Dr. Clapper walked in.

"All out of patients?" she asked them.

They both nodded and helped themselves to a sandwich.

"Thank you all. So much," Greg started. "Ed, I know you went to school for 10 years to operate on brains, and I am very thankful you’re willing to sew up first degree lacerations today. Dr. Clapper, I’m so sorry we pressed you in to service when you came in. Your wife is probably ready to go home by now. You should go take care of her and not let me guilt you into staying any longer. And Soph," he said, using the nickname for the first time, "You’ve really gone above and beyond today. You’re what’s keeping all of us going."

Sophie rolled her eyes at him, but her smile was soft and genuine. Clapper informed Greg that as soon as his wife was finished getting her cast and crutches, she’d be down here too. Until they took her back to work on her leg, she had been helping keep track of all the patients they were seeing and taking over triage duty for Sophie whenever she had to run back to the kitchen.

Greg nodded, lips pressed tightly together to keep them from shaking, eyes moist. Ed smiled wide. "We got this, Boss. You get back out there before the ER catches fire or something just because you weren’t there watching it."

"And make sure your staff eats something!" Sophie added.

* * *

After 65 hours, employees starting trickling back in to work, saying the city was finally plowing roads. Enough nursing and support staff had dug themselves out and made it in to work that Greg could start letting people go home. Donna Sabine made it in right around the 70-hour mark of Greg’s shift.

"Donna! Please tell me you didn’t drive in from your place in the country! That can’t have been safe."

She grinned at him. "I drove the tractor out to the main road and waited until the snow plow came by. Hitched my way in on plow trucks and gas company cherry pickers."

He smiled at her. "I wish you hadn’t done that, but I can’t say I’m not glad to see you. You wanna take over trauma and level 2 emergencies and I’ll see the low-level stuff?"

"Or you could go home, Greg, and I’ll do it."

"There are still a few dozen people in the atrium waiting to be seen."

"And you were going to see them all yourself, running on bad coffee and no sleep for three days."

Greg sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Okay, how about this? I’ll see the little stuff, the stuff where me being tired doesn’t have a chance to hurt anyone, and leave you everything else. We’ll still be able to clear the waiting room twice as fast if we work together."

"But only until 7am. Once it’s light outside, you go home. Deal?"

"Okay, deal."

Donna eyed him a minute, then nodded. She pressed the cup of coffee she was holding into his hands and headed off toward the trauma bay. Greg walked back toward the minor emergencies area, sipping at the coffee gratefully.

Two hours later, at 7am on the dot, Donna came to make sure he was leaving. She threatened to run him out of the building and Greg realized that was the thing any responsible supervisor would do. He checked around to make sure none of the other ER employees who had been on-shift during the storm were still around. Then he found Ed and Sophie. "Time to go, guys."


	8. Between Heartbeats

"My car," Ed gruffed out as the three of them made their way out to the parking lot just five minutes later. No one argued. Greg and Sophie both had small commuter cars that wouldn’t fair nearly as well as Eddie’s SUV in the remains of the blizzard. And three people digging out one car meant it was only 10 minutes until they were inside with the heater going full blast. Ed slowly pulled out of the parking lot, tires crunching over slush and making packed ice squeak. 

The car was quiet except for the heater blowing, three days essentially without sleep catching up with everyone. No one seemed surprised when they pulled up outside of Ed’s apartment. Greg didn’t even try to rationalize it to himself as the closet place to the hospital they could go. He thought of his own empty, likely cold and powerless apartment and just admitted he’d rather be here.

The power was out at Ed’s too, and the trio had to climb the stairs up to his floor. Inside the apartment wasn’t as bad as Greg was expecting; the brick building was well insulated. The three of them dumped their boots in a pile by the door and hung their dripping coats on the pegs. They stumbled back toward Ed’s bed, only to find it was about 15 degrees cooler behind his bedroom door. Must be the windows and the two exterior walls, thought Greg. Sophie went back in to the living area and moved to stack wood into the fireplace. Ed jerked his chin toward Greg and Greg grabbed one end of Ed’s mattress. They flipped it on its side and carried it into the living room, where Sophie had just pushed away the coffee table. Ed and Greg went back into the bedroom to gather up as many blankets as they could find and shut the door behind them on their way back out. Sophie had opened the flue, cold air rushing in for a moment before the fire she had laid crackled and caught. Ed piled the blankets onto the mattress and Greg grabbed three pillows off the couch.

No one had said a word since they left the hospital, but they moved in perfect synchrony, anticipating each other’s moves. Once the bed was made up, everyone started pulling off their clothes. Scrubs hit the floor and mixed together in a sea of blue, joined shortly by six socks, two tank tops and Greg’s t-shirt, boxers, briefs, and a pair of small pink panties. Greg was grimy and sweaty, and he felt every minute of his three days of work without a shower. He gave a fleeting thought to taking a shower before remembering there was no power. Even if the water was running, it wouldn’t be hot. He shivered and abandoned the idea, crawling into the left edge of the bed.

Sophie was in the middle already, with Ed snugged up on her other side with his nose buried in her neck. Greg settled on his back and Sophie pulled at him until he moved closer to her. She wriggled into him, pressing her bare breasts against his side, pillowing her head on his shoulder and throwing an arm around his chest. Ed followed her, pressing closer to them both and his hand stretched to join hers on Greg’s chest. Greg felt Ed’s big, blunt finger pads make contact in between the digits of Sophie’s smaller hand. Greg brought his left hand up and gently cupped it over the place where Sophie and Eddie’s lay. Connected like that, the three of them were asleep in minutes.

Greg woke up hours later to the sound of Ed softly cursing and Sophie softly laughing at him. Ed’s naked ass was squatting in front of the fireplace as he tried to get their only source of heat going again. Sophie pushed the blankets back, letting in a harsh bite of very cold air, and crawled down their bed to help him. Greg sat up and shivered, pulling blankets around himself.

"Why did we think it was a good idea to take off all our clothes?" he asked

Ed turned around to answer, leaving the matches to Sophie’s deft hands. "Because it would have been even worse to wake up ever-so-slightly warmer, wearing the same disgusting cotton-poly Smurf suits that strangers have been bleeding on for the last three days?"

Greg made a face. "Okay. Point."

The fire started again under Sophie ministrations, and soon the three of them were back under the covers, shivering.

"Crap. What time is it?" Ed looked around. "Where the hell did I put my watch?"

Greg checked his own watch. "1600. We’ve got three more hours before we have to be back."

Ed groaned and was about to launch into what Greg was sure would be an epic whine when the power clicked back on. The three of them held their breaths for a minute, but when not so much as a lightbulb flickered, they smiled at each other.

"Dibs on the bathroom!" yelled Soph, making a run for it. Ed wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and went to adjust his thermostat. Greg felt around in the pile of discarded clothing and found their cell phones, plugging Ed’s and Sophie’s into the chargers waiting in the wall. He went looking for another charger, passing Sophie in the hallway.

"Water works," she said with a big, minty grin. "It’s still cold, but it runs and it will get warmer. This place has electric heat." 

Greg made his own pit stop and then rummaged under the bathroom sink for Ed’s leather travel kit. Just as he remembered, there was a cell phone charger in the bag. He paused, looking at Ed’s spare travel toothbrush, shrugged, and brushed his teeth with it. It wasn’t like he and Ed hadn’t already swapped spit. Greg walked back to the living room. Ed passed him, heading for the bathroom and Sophie was in the kitchen. Greg plugged his phone in next to the other two and grabbed a blanket to curl around himself. Ed and Sophie were unabashed in their nakedness, but it seemed strange to Greg. He heard the microwave beep and then Sophie came back into the living room holding three mugs with tea bags hanging out the sides. Greg took all three of them from her as she scooped up a blanket of her own, then passed one back to her as they settled on the couch and set one on the floor next to them. They hunched over their mugs, warming their hands.

Greg breathed in the smell of bergamot and smiled. "Earl gray was my mother’s favorite. She always had the kettle on, drinking tea almost all day long. I’ve always associated the smell with being home."

Sophie grinned at him from over the rim of her mug. "You must be home then, Greg," she said with a wink.

Greg felt like his heart stopped for a moment, but found himself smiling easily back at her. "Yeah," he heard himself whisper, "Maybe I am."

Sophie looked at him with a question in her eyes and a smile on her lips for a long moment. Then she set her mug down on the floor, looking back at him, as if waiting for him to protest. Then she took his mug and set it next to the other two. She searched his face one last time and then leaned in. 

Greg closed his eyes, feeling her nose trail across his lightly stubbled cheek. Her lips brushed briefly across his and Greg leaned in to the contact. Sophie pulled back and Greg opened his eyes. Her smile was an invitation, so he leaned forward and took the kiss she was teasing him with. Her lips were soft and her mouth was far smaller than Ed’s. The kiss was brief and chaste and then her lips were gone again. Greg looked up, taking in her playful, dancing eyes before his eyes fell again to her lips. He leaned in again, kissing her more deeply this time, and she opened her mouth under his. She tasted like tea and toothpaste and something all her own. The kiss was soft, lazy, and perfect. Eventually Sophie broke it, trailing her mouth up his jaw and nudging his head back to nip at his throat. He hummed his approval and bent to recapture her mouth.

They traded another brief kiss, until Sophie ducked out of it again, going after Greg’s left ear. Greg growled and brought his hands up to hold her still, letting his blanket pool around his waist as he kissed her intoxicating mouth. Sophie moaned her approval and the deepened the kiss.

"Yeah, like that," Greg heard whispered from behind him. Guilt shot through him as he turned and looked at Ed. But Ed’s eyes were dark and fixed on Sophie’s swollen lips. "She likes to play, she likes it when you chase her," Ed offered. Greg felt Sophie’s hands on either side of his jaw, and he let her turn his attention back to her. Greg followed as she pulled him down, kissing her neck and nuzzling her breasts as she leaned back against the arm of the couch. Her blanket fell open and Greg wrapped his hands around her small ribcage. He bit gently at a nipple and Sophie moaned and pushed her hips up at him.

Greg looked up and saw Sophie’s neck stretched back, hanging over the arm of the couch as Ed knelt to kiss her. She brought one hand up to cup Ed’s jaw and the other pressed against the back of Greg’s neck, holding him to her breast. Helpless under their spell, Greg turned his attention back to drawing that beautiful moan out of her again. Sophie was beautifully responsive and Greg licked around her sensitive nipples for a few more minutes. When he heard the kiss going on above him wetly break apart, he looked up again. Sophie was panting, her dark eyes looking down at him. Ed’s familiar blue gaze met his from where Ed was kissing her neck. Greg saw nothing but desire in their eyes and he let his hands wander, sliding down to Sophie’s hips, nudging the blanket away.

Sophie moaned and Eddie groaned and Greg let his hands smooth down the outside of her thighs. He got his knees under himself and scooted as far down as the couch would allow as he kissed his way down her belly. He felt his blanket scrunch and gather around his own waist, but he paid it no heed. He wrapped his hands around her legs, gently tugging them apart as he kissed the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh and slowly nosed his way into her curls.

"Yeah, please? Please Greg?" Sophie said, and he had never meant to tease her like that, never meant to make her beg.

He gave her one long lick in apology, following her body as it bucked up and fell back down. He curled his hands tighter around her thighs and set to work, circling her clit with his lips and driving his tongue into her body. Sophie’s moans were muffled by Ed’s kiss, and when Greg looked up he saw familiar hands teasing her breasts and pinching her nipples lightly. When Sophie was moaning fairly constantly, Greg balanced on one arm and brought his right hand up touch her. He lightly scratched up her leg and then ran his fingertips all around her sex. Finally, he trailed a finger down her wetness and into her. Sophie pushed back against him in encouragement. Greg added a second finger, quickly finding a rhythm and angle that worked for her. He bent his head back down and suckled gently at her clit. Sophie came apart around him, shaking and moaning and squeezing. Greg slowed his movements, but didn’t stop until her hands came back down onto his head, pulling him up to her mouth.

She kissed him wetly, hot and hungry and perfect, and Greg let his erection slide against the slippery heat of her crotch. Greg kissed her until he felt another hand pulling at his neck and then he was on his knees kissing Ed, passing the taste of Sophie between them.

He felt Sophie’s hand trail through his chest hair and wrap around his hip. He wondered if she was holding Ed’s hip with her other hand and gasped at the surge of _want_ that went through him at the idea. He deepened the kiss and Ed matched his passion. Greg felt a hand wrap around his cock and he couldn’t tell from the angle whose it was. When the kiss broke, he looked down and found it was Sophie’s sure hand wrapped around him, stroking him firmly. Greg groaned aloud and Ed nipped at his neck as they both watched her work him. Greg pulled back after a few minutes, not wanting it to all be over too soon.

Sophie looked at Ed and then Greg. "Bed?"

The three of them started toward the mattress on the floor, but each got distracted on the way. Greg stopped to pick up the tea mugs and walk them over to the kitchen pass-through. When he turned back around, Ed was adding a log to the fire and Sophie was gone. Greg started back to the mattress wondering where she had gone when he saw her coming back from the bathroom holding a strip of condoms.

They came together again, pilling onto the mattress, kissing and touching whatever skin was within reach. Sophie pressed one of the condoms into Greg’s hand and looked into his eyes.

"I want you in me. I want to feel you come just as hard as you made me come."

Ed and Greg both groaned at that. Greg let himself be pushed over onto his back. He sucked in a breath and watched as Ed ripped the wrapper open with his teeth and rolled the condom down onto Greg’s shaft. And then Sophie was kneeling over him, looking down at him, slowly sinking onto him. He was pretty sure Ed was groaning with him for that too, but he was past the point where he could focus on anything but Sophie’s tight heat. She started slowly, but found her rhythm before long. Greg reached up, caressing her hips, tickling her sides, running the backs of his fingers over her breasts. Sophie closed her eyes and hummed. Her right hand shot out and found Ed’s, pulling it down to touch her clit. Ed worked her, brushing against Greg’s shaft on every stroke. Greg’s gut tightened and he knew he wouldn’t last much longer. He shot a _help me_ look in Ed’s direction and then started to pinch Sophie’s sensitive nipples. Ed’s hand circled her clit faster and Sophie went faster and harder. Greg felt her clenching around him and he followed her over the edge. They shook together and froze for a moment, then Sophie collapsed onto his shoulder and they rode out the aftershocks. Greg rubbed her back gently, stroking through the sweat that gathered there.

Greg felt the mattress dip to their right and he and Sophie both looked up to see Ed, wide-eyed and flushed, leaning over them. Ed’s left hand came down on Sophie’s back and his right hand moved quickly over his cock. Ed was doing that stream-of-consciousness dirty talk thing he did when he got really worked up.

"…yeah, fuck yeah, so hot, both, you two, the way you touch, make me so, want you, want you both, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ …"

Ed spurted onto Sophie’s back and collapsed next to Greg. Greg’s hand was still stroking her back, and now it trailed through Ed’s mess. Sophie shivered deliciously.

"Yeah, rub it in, Greg. Wanna smell like you both."

Greg groaned at that and his dick gave a half-hearted twitch that, sadly, caused it to slide out of Sophie. He sighed at the loss, but did his best to keep her happy by rubbing Ed’s come into her back. The three of them stayed there a few more minutes, floating in the afterglow. Eventually, heart rates slowed and breathing returned to normal and the stickiness of reality descended. Sophie got up first, sighing.

"Shower? I bet there’s hot water now. And we still have an hour before we have to go back."

There was hot water, and Ed’s walk-in shower was big enough for three. Greg sent a silent thanks to the lovely older woman with the bad hip that had lived there when Ed first looked at this place. She had convinced management to replace her tub with a more accessible shower before she had eventually moved in with her daughter.

Despite having plenty of room, there was no sexy soaping each other up or playfully washing each other’s hair. This was three people who suddenly remembered they hadn’t showered in _days_ fighting for time under the one shower nozzle. The water started to chill after 20 minutes and they finished up quickly. Ed passed around towels and then clothes. Ed and Greg started moving the bedding back into the bedroom while Sophie rummaged in Ed’s pantry.

"Mac and cheese okay?" she called out.

"Hell yeah!" Ed shouted.

"Wasn’t talking to you!" Sophie yelled back.

"Say yes!" Ed hissed. "She does something to the sauce that’s amazing."

"Anything’s fine!" Greg replied.

The mac and cheese _was_ amazing. It turned out Sophie did three simple things to the ordinary box of Kraft that turned it into something magical. One was putting Worcestershire in the water while the pasta boiled. The second was a liberal dose of black pepper on the final product. The third trick she refused to share, her dark eyes laughing as she insisted it was a secret.

All too soon, the three were walking back through the doors of the hospital. Sophie smiled at them and broke off to head down to the kitchen. Ed followed Greg into the ER’s bullpen. Greg poured them each a cup of coffee and the two men leaned back against the wall, standing side by side, savoring the last new minutes before their shift started.

"Do you think we’re okay?" Ed asked softly, taking a sip of coffee.

"The city? Yeah. It was a bad storm, but the community really came together and—"

"No," Ed cut in, "Do you think _we’re_ okay?"

Greg glanced over at him, but Ed’s eyes were still focused on something on the far side of the ER. Greg considered a moment and then smiled.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think we are."

"Good," Ed said, finally looking back at Greg. "Because I’m… _really fucking happy_." He ducked his head. "And I want to make sure you are too."

Greg grinned at his coffee cup. "Eddie, I’m more than happy. I’m _home_." 

An ambulance pulled up to the side door, siren still wailing. 

Ed drained the last of his coffee and then elbowed Greg with a huge grin on his face. "Come on then, they’re playing our song."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Anatomy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/532133) by [theleaveswant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleaveswant/pseuds/theleaveswant)
  * [Lazy Morning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1759893) by [mizface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizface/pseuds/mizface)




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